


My Own Goddamn Hero

by postinghumorouslyposthumously



Series: Chillin' On a Building [1]
Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Marvel, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Age Difference, Angst, Avenger Drama, Because of Wade, Bros Fighting Crime, Canon-Typical Violence, Changing of Beliefs, Changing of opinions, College Student Peter Parker, Deadpool is Deadpool, Discussion of Age Difference Issues, Falling In Love, Feels, Fighting Crime, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Gay Peter Parker, Growing Up, Humor, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Insecurity, Loosely Constructed Bad Guy Plot, M/M, Multi, Pansexual Wade Wilson, Partners to friends to lovers, Peter Is Struggling Okay, Peter is an Avenger, Self-Discovery, Self-Esteem Issues, Slow Burn, Stressed Peter Parker, Suicide, Superhero Drama, Trust, Wade Wilson Needs A Hug
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2019-12-30 18:23:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 39,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18320771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/postinghumorouslyposthumously/pseuds/postinghumorouslyposthumously
Summary: Peter thought he knew who he was. He was Spiderman. An Avenger. A freshman in college. A Superhero, one of Earth's mightiest heroes, possibly failing his finals. He had beliefs, and morals, and his life was a clear and easily understandable constructed web.Then--he met Wade.In which we all grow up, no one can know the future, and we can only trust ourselves enough to figure it all out as we go along.-The Installment that starts it all. When Spiderman met Deadpool for the first time, and consequently fell in love.





	1. Judge, Jury, Accused, Defendant, Witness

**Author's Note:**

> Well. Here we go. The beginning of it all. 
> 
> When Peter met Wade. Or rather...when Spiderman met Deadpool. 
> 
> As a preface to this, first of all, I'm not entirely confident in this chapter. But, I've decided to post it anyway.  
> 2nd, I told myself I was going to finish writing Batshit before I wrote this, and that would be good. But then I kind of lost motivation to write Batshit, and so now I'm using this as a way to worm myself back onto the Spideypool Crazy Train. 
> 
> I have a lot of scenes already written for this installment, and I'm very excited for it. I think this might turn out to be my favorite Peter and Wade installment. This is also very Peter-Centric, and I'm not sure how much will actually be from Wade's POV. 
> 
> This is a story about trust. Trusting and believing in yourself, and being your own human being to the best of your ability.

Peter had been masturbating too much. 

Technically, he didn’t know if there was even such a thing as. 

But he felt like he probably was. Was three times a day too much? No, that was normal, right? Especially for a young, partnerless eighteen year old riddled with the stress of being Spiderman  _ and  _ endeavouring into his first year of college. Honestly, he was surprised he even found the  _ time  _ to get off three times a day. A superpower unto itself. 

Whatever, the point was that Peter  _ definitely  _ needed to masturbate more. Or--no. That wasn’t the point actually. Or at least it hadn’t been when he had started this inner tangent. But those were simpler times, twenty seconds ago, when the asshole he was currently chasing  _ didn’t  _ have a gun, and  _ wasn’t  _ waving it around and firing blindly over his shoulder as though there were no risk of hitting any passing civilians. 

Peter’s ears rung with the sound of the shots. He was faster than the person he was pursuing, he’d be able to catch him in the next ten seconds, max. 

One thing you learn when you’re around hot guns for any given period of time? 

Ten seconds is a long time. 

Long enough to end double the amount of lives, if enough of them are standing around, getting in the way, and the shooter has the right gun. 

Long enough to down a woman jogging with earbuds in, pushing a stroller. 

Peter full-cartoon skids to a stop next to the woman, dropping down to access the damage. The bullet went through the woman’s shoulder. Peter didn’t know a shitton about medical... _ ness _ , and so his assessment of the woman, medically, of course, was that there was a  _ lot  _ of blood. Unnecessary amounts of blood. Amounts of blood that, if shown in a slightly-lower-quality-production horror movie would make slightly-more-pretentious horror movie watchers scoff and say:  _ “That is WAY too much blood. Bleeding doesn’t work like that!” _ . Well, Peter Parker is here to tell you that blood  _ absamafuckinglutely  _ works like that. Apparently. Also, screaming. 

So, that reassuring ten seconds that it  _ would  _ have taken Peter to catch up with Mr. Bad Guy Shooty Face, was shattered like delicate glass in the impact of Peter’s steel-toed-tipped panic.

“ _ Kid, what are you doing?!”  _

Inquiries Tony Stark’s lovely shriek in Peter’s ear. 

Peter flinches, then looks up in time for Ton--Iron Man to fly past him in hot pursuit of Mr. Bad Guy Shooty Face. 

Peter taps the button on his headset through the fabric of his mask. 

“This lady’s shot, what do I do?!” Peter exclaimed. 

“ _ Worry about making sure  _ other  _ people don’t get shot?! Medics are on their way!”  _

Peter breathed in and out hard, glancing down at the writhing woman, screaming, bloody, doing a good job of symbolizing the end of a Shakespeare play--Peter thinks, he didn’t pay  _ much  _ attention in English--and then looks back up down the street where Iron Man pursued the shooter, then, like his head was on a swivel, he looked at the stroller, fit with a baby facing out, away from their mother, crying. Probably because of the bang of the gun and the screaming.

_ Lady, Tony, baby. Lady, Tony, Baby. Lady, Tony, baby, lady Tony, baby, ladytonybabyladytonybaby.  _

He fell to his knees, and grabbed the woman’s hands, raising them to the bulletwound in her shoulder. The woman screamed as Peter pressed down. 

“Keep pressure!” Peter told the woman. 

“ _ Urgh!! My baby!”  _ The woman screamed through gritted teeth. Peter moved up onto one knee and poked his head around to check on the baby again. Crying, but still unharmed. 

“They’re fine! They’re okay! Medics are on their way!” Peter tried to reassure the woman. 

“ _ Kid! I need you down here! The situation just got a whole lot worse!”  _

Peter jumped slightly again at Tony’s voice yelling in his ear. 

He looked up, still pressing on the woman’s wound, looking around. Tony and the man had disappeared from this street, but he still heard pops of guns firing not far off. Down this street, however, was another man, sprawled on his side, newly minted hole leaking blood in his face. Another man crouched beside him, hand covering his mouth, crying, shaking the dead man’s shoulder. 

Peter’s heart, if already jackrabbiting, was now jackhammering in his chest. 

He only got up when he heard the sirens, taking off down the street in the direction the shooter and Iron Man went, glancing over his shoulder to see the ambulances turn the corner onto the street with the wounded woman and the dead man. 

Peter turned forward again, throwing out his arm and shooting a web onto a building at the end of the street, propelling himself forward and swinging around the street corner. 

He shot another web at one of the buildings, pulling himself to it and sticking to the wall, focusing on the unfolding scene of Tony apprehending the shooter, several cop cars pulling onto the street from the opposite end, leaving the man surrounded. 

“Put the gun down, it’s over!” 

Peter heard Tony tell the guy, the whirring and flashing of sirens discombobulating even in the broad of day. 

Peter narrowed his eyes at the panicked man, about to be apprehended. He was wearing a black bandana tied around the lower portion of his face, and on the front of the bandana was a dark blue shape Peter could just barely make out from this far away against the pitch black of the background it was set against.

Spidey sense snapped like a thick branch in Peter’s core. His eyes flew open, and he threw a web before he realized what he was doing, a half second before the gun went off again. 

The shooter had tried to blow his own brains out. He’d stuck the business end of the gun against his own temple. Peter’s web hit his hand just in time to jolt the gun from the man’s hand, sending the bullet flying, embedding itself somewhere harmlessly. 

Tony moved, grabbing the guy and putting him on the ground, wrenching his arms behind his back. The cops were fast approaching, weapons drawn. 

Peter dropped down to the ground, and walked closer to the scene, keeping his distance. 

Tony handed the man over to the cops, and they dragged him to his feet, turning him so that he was facing Peter’s direction now. Before Tony let the cops drag him away, he stepped forward, and ripped the bandana off the man’s face. When Tony stepped back, studying the bandana in his hand, Peter’s brows immediately knitted in confusion. 

All around the shooter’s mouth were little, precise scars. Precise in the sense that their appearance was purposeful. No accident could have caused them. 

Tony looked back up at the man, then the cops flanking his sides, holding one arm each. 

“Keep a close eye on him,” Tony told them, then he turned, and started walking back in Peter’s direction. 

Peter watched as the cops turned, pulling the shooter along. The shooter, though angry, went with them, not trying to escape. Peter watched the back of his head. Thought about his scars. Wondered if they were self inflicted. 

Tony neared him. Peter looked at him, but Tony didn’t recede his face plate. 

“Get back to the Tower,” he said. 

Peter looked down at the ground, and felt sick. 

 

Tony played him security camera footage of the streets they had been on that day in the Tower. He paused when Peter stopped and helped the woman who was shot. 

A few beats of silence passed. Peter heard them all too loudly in his ears, and felt his stomach squeeze tighter with every moment, wishing it was over. Then, Tony spoke. 

“Right here? You could have caught him.” 

And Peter wished they could go back to the silence. 

Peter stared at the ground.

They were sat at a table, large screen stretched across the wall in front of them. Tony was de-Iron-Man-ified, but Peter was still in his suit, only having removed his mask. It laid on the table next to his hand. 

Tony pushed play again. Peter looked up and watched as the shooter shot the other victim at the end of the street and he collapsed. Then, the image changed to the next security camera on the street over. Tony came into view chasing him. The man shot several times over his shoulder at Iron Man, and the bullets ricocheted off the suit, two, it looked like, landed in a civilian bystander, who went down. 

Tony hit stop again on his remote. 

Peter’s head lowered. He ran his hand through his hair. 

Silence again, and this time Peter didn’t take it for granted. He soaked in every agonizing second. 

“The woman is going to be fine, by the way.” 

Peter realized Tony was talking about the woman who he stopped to help. 

“Through-and-through her shoulder.”

Peter thought if he looked up and into Tony’s face, he might actually melt into some sort of lumpy flaming slime. 

“The others though? The man died immediately. He was shot in the head. The other woman had a heart attack in the ambulance.” 

Peter could feel the pre stages of tears welling up in his eyes. Thickness in the back of his throat. 

 

Opposite of what most of the Avengers believed, Peter wasn’t a child. He knew that what they did was messy, and that when he made mistakes, people died. There were behemoth consequences for his actions, and a lot of the time, it was the Avengers who held him accountable. It worked that way. They, especially Tony, were his mentors. 

Peter was a logical soul. He understood what had happened. That because of the decision he had made, people had died. But how could he have possibly known that the woman and the baby would be okay? How the hell was he supposed to know? But he guessed that was just part of being a superhero, right? You’re  _ supposed  _ to know. Maybe it’s something that comes with time. Those instincts...part of Peter knew that was bullshit. 

And another part of him, no matter how hard he tried to shove it down and away and  _ stop _ ...it stayed. The one that just wanted someone to tell him he did good. Hold his hand and brush a hand over his sweaty hair like Aunt May used to when he had nightmares. No one holds your hand and brushes a hand over your sweaty hair when you have nightmares when you live alone. No one tells you everything is going to be okay. No one is there to have already put food in the fridge and clothes in the dryer, or pay rent while you don’t ever think twice about it. 

So maybe he was struggling a little bit. 

So maybe thinking about how Tony Stark, his hero, his idol, his mentor, the man who he practically worshipped, was disappointed in him made his insides physically hurt. 

So maybe he took several extra minutes in the shower just to be angsty and let the water pour over him and run off the edges of his body while he stared into the drain, washing it all swirl away and imagining it was all his problems but knowing it was a more apt representation of his composure. 

 

Peter left the bathroom with wet hair. He was drained. He just wanted to go home, eat, go to bed, and start over tomorrow. 

He felt...some sort of way over the fact that he saved the shooter, but failed to save two victims. Because he was trying to save one. 

At least the woman lived. 

Because “ _ At Least” _ ’s  _ always _ made people feel better.

“Where do you think you’re going?” 

Peter turned around. Tony walked towards him. 

“We got a lead. Paul Summer. Connected to the guy we took down today, and, as far as we can tell, probably also connected to this--” Tony said, taking out the bandana he had gotten from the man they had apprehended. Tony threw Peter the bandana, and Peter took it, finally examining the symbol on it. The bandana was black. And on the front it had two curved white lines that made an unconnected circle. It was simple. 

“Anyway, I’m putting you on this,” Tony said. 

Peter looked up. 

“Alone?” He asked. 

Tony paused, and raised a brow. 

“Think you can handle that?” 

Peter nodded immediately. 

“Yeah, of course,” he said. 

Tony nodded, “good.” 

He turned, and walked away. 

Peter refrained from rolling his eyes in frustration, despite being happy that Tony was giving him a case to himself--though it probably just meant Tony thought it was low-grade--and headed back towards the bathroom to change. 

 

Peter really should have eaten something before he left. 

He felt the mistake hollow in his gut. In the exhaustion he felt in the soles of his feet, and just above the bridge of his nose. 

He soared across the building tops in the way that usually made him feel like an  _ Assassin’s Creed  _ badass, but now it just felt like the moments when you’re going down the stairs too fast and your just barely balancing on the precipice of fallingnotfalling. 

Peter slowed down as he neared the edge of this building, shooting out a web and swinging himself down to the ground, promptly cutting of Paul Summer, who he had been chasing for the last couple minutes when the guy had taken off at a sprint upon confrontation. 

Paul skid to a stop, eyes widening at seeing Spiderman. He made to turn around, and Peter webbed his feet to the ground. He pulled out a gun. Peter webbed that too. 

Peter neared him as Paul struggled. 

“Paul Summer? Know anything about this?” Peter asked, pulling out the bandana Tony had taken off their previous shooter. 

Paul’s eyes widened as he took in the bandana with the symbol. 

“I don’t have any fucking idea!” He shouted. 

Peter nodded, “yeah, sure,” he said, reaching out towards the man. Paul lunged towards him, and Peter webbed his hands as well. Peter pulled a similar bandana out of his pocket. 

“No idea at all,” Peter said blandly. 

“Fuck off,” Paul said. 

Peter was really too tired for this shit. He opened his mouth to speak again, when--

“Hold up there, cowboys!” 

Peter looked up. He squinted against the glare of the sun. He saw some sort of figure holding up what appeared to be two swords, standing on top of the building next to them, staring down at them.

“ _ YEEEE-HAW!”  _ The man exclaimed, and surprised Peter by stepped off the edge of the roof. He collided with the ground a moment later in a great  _ whump _ of wasted human potential. 

Peter would have been concerned at this display--well, no, he was still concerned, but...less so when he saw who it was. Really, he should have known when he saw the swords, and he was referred to as “ _ cowboy _ ”. 

Deadpool laid in a dead heap on the pavement. 

Both Peter and the man he had webbed to the ground stared at the mass of red and black. After a few moments, Deadpool twitched. Again. And then, he stood up with a few sickening cracks and pops. 

“ _ Ohhh _ ,” Deadpool groaned, and then grinned, the expression discernible through his mask. “That  _ never  _ gets any better,” he said. 

“What do you want?” Peter asked, kind of at a loss for anything else. 

Deadpool pointed one of his katanas at the man currently webbed to the ground. 

“Your friend, here, has some information I need to torture out of him,” Deadpool said. 

Peter raised an eyebrow. 

“Finders keepers,” he said. 

He saw Deadpool pause. Like he was surprised by Peter’s retort. Then, he grinned again, shrugging. 

“Look, Spiderman, as much as I  _ love  _ your whole aesthetic and everything...I’ve kinda got a few bucks on the line here, and I’m not exactly known for letting Avengers get in the way of me and my jobs, so... _ run along _ , or whatever.” 

Peter stared at Deadpool, unimpressed, though he probably couldn’t tell through Peter’s mask. 

“Yeah, no...how ‘bout this...we work together on this one?” 

Deadpool finally lowered the katana. He once again appeared surprised. And then considerate. 

“Hmm...well...in the spirit of working together, guess I should let you know that your prisoner is about to pull a  _ me _ .” 

Peter’s eyes widened, and he spun around, furious at himself for taking his attention off the webbed man for a second. Peter grabbed his wrist right before the man popped a powdery white pill into his mouth, and slapped the pill away. He webbed the man’s hands together. The man grit his teeth, and glared at Peter. 

Peter looked back over at Deadpool, who was watching him. 

“Working with Spidey, eh? Somein’ new everyday!” 

Peter shrugged. 

 

You couldn’t go very long as a superhero in New York without hearing about The Merc With The Mouth. Peter knew about Deadpool the way one knows about Florida Man. He heard the crazy headlines, but he’d never actually met him before. Didn’t know what was real and what was fake. Though, from the way most people talked about him, most of it was probably real. 

Two sprinkles of crazy past fucked up was the general consensus. Usually, Peter didn’t give him much thought. 

He watched Deadpool practically toss the man across the roof, and then he was on him again. Deadpool lifted him up by the collar of his shirt. Peter watched from a few feet away, arms crossed.

“So, Paul, tell me about Khaos?” Deadpool asked with an air of casuality. 

_ Paul _ remained silent. These assholes were stone fucking cold Jesus Christ. 

Deadpool shrugged, “okay, looks like we’re gonna have to do this the  _ hard _ way.” 

Deadpool lifted the man and dragged him over to the edge of the building. He held him up, Paul’s feet dangling in the open air. 

Peter moved towards them. He wasn’t going to let Deadpool  _ actually  _ kill the guy. Peter stopped when he was close enough to intervene if things got hairy, and remained on guard. 

Deadpool said nothing more. Just waited. Peter watched Paul’s expression. Paul was clutching Deadpool’s arms hard. He looked scared. 

Deadpool jolted him. Peter tensed. 

“ _ Okay! _ ” The man exclaimed. 

Peter relaxed. 

“Let me down, and I’ll talk,” Paul said through grit teeth.

Deadpool threw him back onto the roof. Peter took a step back to avoid collision. Paul landed at his feet, and glared up at him. 

“I’m just a salesman, okay?” He said. 

Deadpool hummed, and stepped closer, reeling back his foot, he kicked the man in the side. Peter thought maybe he should intervene. This wasn’t really how they did things. But what was he expecting when he decided to work with Deadpool? Was he really just that tired. 

“Yo,” Peter said, and Deadpool stopped, looking up at him, “take it easy,” he said. 

Deadpool snorted. 

“I only have one level, and it’s  _ eleven _ ,” Deadpool said, and squatted down next to Paul. 

“You mean Canine?” He asked the man. 

Paul sneered at him. 

“You have no idea who you’re messing with,” he hissed. 

Deadpool obviously rolled his eyes. 

“Well,  _ duh _ ...I wouldn’t be talking to you if I did.” 

Peter scratched the back of his neck through the suit. He was confused, and listening aptly, trying to figure out what the hell they were talking about. 

Deadpool grabbed a fistful of Paul’s hair and wrenched his head back. 

“Who do you work for, Paul?” 

“He’ll kill me,” Paul said, his resolve withering. Fear braided with his voice, plain as day.

Peter snorted, “ _ He’ll  _ kill you,” he said, referencing Deadpool. 

Deadpool glanced up at him shortly, then back. 

“Basically,” he said sweetly. Peter was intrigued by the highness of his voice. 

Paul looked between them. 

“The only person I talk to is Emerson,” Paul said finally. 

“He give you Canine?” 

Paul said nothing, which was answer enough. 

“Alright, Paul...you’ve been mediumly helpful.” 

Deadpool reached towards him with his other hand, and Peter realized he was going to kill him. 

“Stop,” he said. 

Deadpool whipped his head up. 

“We’re not killing him,” Peter said. 

Deadpool cocked a brow. 

“Exsqueeze me?” 

Peter stepped forward, and wrenched the guy away from Deadpool by the back of his shirt. Peter held him up, Paul’s feet brushing the gravel rooftop. Deadpool’s brow raised even further at the display of strength. 

“We’re not killing him.” 

Deadpool paused, and then something in his demeanor clicked. He raised his hands and waved them both dismally. 

“Ah, right,  _ morals _ ,” Deadpool said. 

Peter chortled,

“ _ Basically _ ,” he parroted Deadpool from earlier. Deadpool giggled. 

“Whatcha gonna do with him?” 

“Police,” Peter said by way of response, and then, without preamble, dropped Paul and knocked him out with a punch. Paul crumpled in a heap. “In a minute,” Peter said. 

“First, you’re going to tell me what that was all about. What’s Khaos? Canine?” 

Deadpool’s gaze lifted from Paul’s unconscious form, back up to Peter. Deadpool stood up again and bounced once on his feet. 

“You are  _ full  _ of surprises, Spidey.” 

 

_ Khaos _ was, in Deadpool’s words, “ _ kinda like a gang, kinda like a cult _ .” He didn’t know who the leader was, but he was hired to kill him. When Peter asked who hired him, Deadpool waggled his fingers and said: “ _ Doctor-Patient confidentiality, Spides...I’m a woman of morals, just like yourself.”  _

Peter was ashamed to say that the response made him chortle. 

_ Canine  _ was a drug Khaos distributed. Apparently it was some type’a strong hallucinogenic that made people wanna eat other people’s faces off. 

“How come the Avengers haven’t heard about it?” Peter asked, confused. 

Deadpool waved a hand in the air. 

“S’been kinda low grade for Earth’s high-and-mightiest,” Deadpool said, “Khaos is only just now scratching the taint of ‘Vengering radar.” 

Peter crinkled up his nose, but also snorted in amusement. Sue him, he was a eighteen year old guy. 

“‘Splains why they put me on it,” Peter muttered. 

Deadpool coo’ed at him, “ _ aww _ , are you bottom of the totem pole, Spidey?  _ Can  _ relate,” he snickered. 

Peter rolled his eyes, and looked back at Paul’s unconscious body. 

“I should probably drop him off,” he said, and then started searching Paul’s pockets. He found a little plastic bag with several little pills inside. He held it up. 

“These what I think they are?” Peter asked. 

Deadpool snatched the bag out of his hand. Peter didn’t have time to sputter something indignant before Deadpool responded. 

“Heck if I know, Spider-boo.” 

“I’ll take them back to the tower,” Peter said, holding out his hand for the bag. 

Deadpool turned around to face him again slowly, holding the bag out of reach. 

“ _ na-UH _ , Spidey, I’m running my own diagnostics on these suckers.” 

Peter rolled his eyes, and shot a web at the bag, snatching it back from Deadpool. Deadpool sputtered indignantly. 

“No  _ fair! _ ” 

Peter ignored him, and opened the bag. There was seven pills inside. He poured three out, and held them out to Deadpool. 

“Sharing is caring,” he said. 

Deadpool considered him warily, and then took the pills. 

“I told you, we should work together on this.” 

“You want to  _ continue  _ to friend-with-benefit this shit?” Deadpool asked. 

Peter raised his eyebrows. 

“You don’t?” 

Deadpool grinned. 

“ _Au_ _contraire_ , Spiderman. I’m totally down to be best besties.” 

Peter snorted. 

“ _ Fabulous _ ,” he responded, high-pitched like Deadpool’s own voice. 

Deadpool gasped dramatically, pressing a hand to his chest. 

“I  _ knew  _ this was gonna be a great idea!” He exclaimed. 

Peter shook his head. 

“How do I contact you?” 

“Asking for my number al _ ready _ ?” 

Peter rolled his eyes. 

“Okay, whatever. How ‘bout we meet here again tomorrow after we’ve both run tests on these pills? Same time?” 

“It’s a booty call,” Deadpool said in the same way people said  _ “it’s a date.” _

 

Peter dropped Paul off at the police station, tied up in webs, illegal gun in his pocket. Then, he headed back to the tower. 

The sun was well and truly gone now. The city lit up by its lights now. Peter swung his way, cutting through the air. 

He looked for Tony when he got there. Handed over the pills. 

Tony held the baggie, then looked back at Peter. 

“What is this?” Tony asked. 

“Canine. Probably. That’s what Paul Summer had in his pocket. He’s a dealer for it.” 

Tony nodded. 

“Just like the other guy, then.” 

Peter raised an eyebrow. 

“Yeah?” He asked. 

Tony nodded, walking away towards one of his desks with the bag. 

“Yep. The other guy, Derick Johnson. Had some of the same stuff on ‘em as well. Won’t say what it is or where he got it, though.” 

“A gang called  _ Khaos  _ distributes it,” Peter said. 

Tony looked up. 

“Summer told you that?” 

Peter considered. 

“Not...technically.” 

Tony stopped what he was doing, and stood up straight, giving Peter his full attention now. 

“Explain,” he said. 

Peter licked his lips. 

“So I found the guy, and was talking to him, and then...Deadpool showed up.” 

Tony’s expression remained solid. 

“Deadpool?” He asked. 

Peter nodded, “Yeah. He knew more about this whole thing. So he talked to Summer, and then he told me about Khaos, and Canine.” 

Tony’s brow furrowed. 

“I’m sorry, I’m confused.” 

“Deadpool was hired to take down Khaos. I’m...gonna work with him to do it. At least, for now. Until I know more.” 

Tony stared at him blankly. 

Peter shifted uncomfortably. 

“ _ Deadpool? _ ” Tony asked again. 

“Yeah…?” Peter said, raising an eyebrow. 

“You realize he’s a mass murderer, right? Not to mention he’s  _ literally  _ insane.” 

Peter licked along the ridge of his teeth. 

“Peter, what the hell are you thinking?” 

Peter furrowed his brow, “look, I know what I’m doing, okay?” 

“No, not,  _ ‘okay’ _ ,” Tony said, stepping away from the desk and towards Peter. 

Peter frowned at the floor. 

“We don’t  _ consult  _ with Deadpool, Peter,” Tony said. “Jesus, Peter, what’s been with you today?” 

Peter looked up at him. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“It means--” Tony started, then stopped. He sighed, and said nothing. 

“This is about what happened on the street?” Peter asked incredulously. 

Tony nodded at him, “ _ and  _ that you’re now apparently working with Deadpool. I’m seriously questioning your judgement, kid.” 

Peter scoffed, “there’s nothing wrong with my judgement, Tony, what I did on the street today was--” 

Tony interrupted him by raising placating hands. Peter bit his tongue. 

“Look, kid, I understand that you were just trying to help her. I get that. And maybe that was the best decision you could have made in that moment. But because you didn’t catch up to that guy, two other people were shot and killed. You can’t know these things in the moment. It’s impossible. But you gotta get better at calculating your options. Reducing the risk and lowering the body count as much as possible. Working with Deadpool is a surefire way to  _ increase  _ the body count tenfold.”  

Peter looked down at his mask in his hand, ran a hand through his sweaty hair.

“You get what I’m saying?” Tony asked. 

Peter thumbed the fabric of his mask. He nodded, tongue still pressed up behind his teeth. 

Tony nodded, “good.” 

Peter took that to mean Tony thought he was agreeing with him, and wasn’t going to work with Deadpool anymore. Peter let him think what he wanted. 

Peter stepped up to Tony’s desk, and took the baggie of pills. 

“What are you doing?” Tony asked. 

“I’ll work on them myself. I know you have more important things to do.” 

Tony made to say something, but Peter stopped him. 

“No--I mean...I’ll do this myself, okay? I can do this.” 

Tony looked at him, mixture of wary and something else. Slowly, he nodded. 

“Don’t get in over your head, kid.” 

Peter nodded again. He left the lab, mask clutched in one hand, bag of pills in the other. 

  
Peter didn’t care what Tony said. Deadpool was  _ helpful  _ today. He was going to prove that his judgement wasn’t shot. He  _ knew  _ what he was fucking doing. He was supposed to be on the same team as Tony and the others. He needed their trust. And, maybe, the juvenile part of him needed to prove them wrong. 


	2. Hoedown Throwdown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pop it lock it polka dot it country fivin' hip hop hip put your hawk in the sky move side to side jump to the left stick it glide zig zag cross the floor shuffle in diagonal when the drum hits hands on your hips one footed 180 twist and then a zig zag step'n slide lean in left to clap three times shake it out head to toe throw it all together that's how we roll.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> badly constructed bad guy plot is badly constructed.   
> But we aren't here for that.

Peter spent most of the night figuring out what the fuck was in the pills he had gotten off Paul Summer. The results were not spectacularly comforting, to say the least. 

In addition to that, he also ran the name  _ Emerson  _ through the criminal record database. He narrowed it down to four hundred and thirty seven people who could potentially be  _ “Emerson” _ . 

Either way, he woke up twenty minutes before noon the next day, thirty seconds before his alarm would go off, half in Spiderman, half out, laid across a couch in Bruce’s lab. Two empty pizza boxes stacked on top of each other rested on the table near him. He turned off the alarm on his phone telling him to get ready for class. 

Peter sat up, rubbing a hand over his face and hair. 

He picked up a piece of paper he had scribbled on the night before. A list of all the suppliers that were known to police databases Khaos could be getting the ingredients for Canine from. And as of right now, that’s all he had to go on. He hoped Deadpool would have more. Thought he might, considering he expected Deadpool to have a lot of seedier connections. 

Peter got up, felt his stomach grumble, and went to the mini fridge. Which was empty. 

Peter got dressed in day old civilian clothes. He wouldn’t have time to swing by his dorm before class. 

 

Peter met Deadpool on the rooftop of the building from yesterday, at the same time as yesterday. He was unsurprised to find that Deadpool was not there yet. Who the hell was he kidding, he had no idea if Deadpool was even going to show up. He told himself he’d wait twenty minutes at  _ most _ , and then he’d move on with his life and handle this himself. 

He hadn’t wanted to go out and start checking out the known suppliers he had made a list up of until he found out what information Deadpool had as well. He didn’t want to be wasting time with this. Several people were already dead. 

Peter sat down on the edge of the roof and swung his feet.

Peter heard the roof access door open behind him. He turned and watched Deadpool come through it. He held a greasy paper bag. 

It was weird, somehow, to watch Deadpool walk through a door. Peter’d seen him walk through doors the previous day, of course, but...he didn’t know, doors seemed... _ mundane  _ somehow. Jesus Christ, that was a weird train of thought. 

Deadpool stopped and waved energetically when he saw him. 

“Spiderbabe! You made it!” Deadpool exclaimed, walking across the roof towards him. 

Peter raised an eyebrow, “I got here first.”

Deadpool shrugged, and dropped casually down to sit next to Peter on the ledge, feet starting to swing as well. Peter watched, mouth quirking up at the mirrored childishness. 

“What’s in the bag?” Peter asked, moving his gaze to the bag now resting in Deadpool’s lap. Deadpool started digging through it. 

“I figured I’d bring a snack! Or--a consolation prize if you stood me up.” 

Peter snorted. Deadpool pulled out what looked like a taco wrapped up in paper, and handed it over. 

Peter stared at it, then took it warily, wondering if it was safe to eat it. He looked back up at Deadpool, who pulled out a similarly wrapped taco and held it in one hand, using his other to roll his mask up to his nose, revealing strange looking flesh.  _ Scars _ ? Peter thought. Deadpool started munching without further fanfare. 

Peter decided to take his chances and unwrapped his taco to take a bite. He pulled his own mask up to his nose similarly to Deadpool’s. 

“So,” Peter started after he’d swallowed, “what do you know?” 

“ _ ‘Bout Canine? _ ” Deadpool asked through a mouthful of food before swallowing thickly, “not much. But I did find out who Emerson might be.” 

Peter jerked his head over to look at him. 

Deadpool took another bite of taco, swung his feet. 

Peter waited. 

“... _ And _ ?” He prompted finally after a good few seconds had passed. 

“And...he lives, like, twenty minutes away.” 

Peter stood up quickly. 

“What are we waiting for then?!” He all but shouted. 

Deadpool looked up at him, and then held up a taco in response. 

Peter gave him a look Deadpool wouldn’t be able to see through the mask. 

“Get up.” 

Deadpool snickered, and faced forward for a second. 

“Oh, I  _ like  _ ‘em bossy,” he said with a tilt of his head, seemingly to no one in particular. 

“What?” Peter asked. 

Deadpool’s head swivelled back over to him. 

Several seconds passed. They stared at each other. Peter got the impression that Deadpool was batting his eyes innocently. 

“...Tell me the address, I’ll swing you,” Peter finally said. 

Deadpool stood up quickly, bouncing up and down on the ledge precariously. He clapped his hands together like an excited little kid. 

“Fuck  _ yeah,  _ Spidey!  _ Always  _ wanted to do this!” 

Peter raised his eyebrows. 

“Really?” He asked. 

Deadpool nodded vigorously. 

“I’m the captain of your fan club, hero,” he said seriously. 

Peter made a noise between a chortle and a derisive snort, “I can’t imagine the damage of you being captain of  _ anything _ .”

“Hey,  _ I’m  _ not the one on team  _ Destroy-New-York-City-Every-Other-Wednesday _ ,” Deadpool retorted chipperly. 

Peter forced air out his nose. His chest clenched around guilt, images of destruction the Avengers (and him personally) had inadvertently caused fighting The Big Bads. He pushed all that away. 

“It’s not _“every other_ _Wednesday_ ”...” Peter said, then smirked, “more like every _third_ Wednesday.” 

Deadpool cackled. 

 

***A Brief and Assumptious History of Carl Emerson**

 

Carl Emerson was born a little less than four weeks prematurely at four pounds, eight ounces. In case you didn’t know, when babies are born a little less than four weeks prematurely, often times their skin is still translucent enough that you can virtually see right through. They’re tiny (we’ve all seen preemie clothes) and usually come with some problems. Carl Emerson came with asthma that would last him his whole life, and an eventual maxed out height of 5’5. He kept his inhaler with him at all times and got used to the short jokes. 

Carl had a cousin named Matt, and Matt dealt drugs. Matt got Carl into the family business, and there Carl had been since the ripe old age of seventeen. Thing was, Carl didn’t do most of the drugs he sold. This, ironically enough, gave him an edge over the competition. So, Carl rose in the ranks until he was in charge of all things drug related within the organization that was called  _ Khaos _ . Carl didn’t really care for the more culty side of things with the weird group of freaks in masks, but when your living like a fucking king, you don’t bite the hand of your crown bestower. 

Carl lived in a top floor loft apartment in a building located in one of the nicer New York neighborhoods. His neighbors were lawyers, doctors, businessmen, politicians, and other criminals of his life. He had an espresso machine that was probably worth more than his house growing up, and a car that got him laid Friday, Saturday,  _ and  _ Sunday. 

Canine was a versatile drug. He managed a web of twenty five bosses who had their own dealers who sold to everyone from spoiled trust fund babies at parties, to the dirty homeless living in back alley ways. He kept a stash of it hidden in a little cubby behind a false wall  _ behind  _ his safe in his apartment. 

 

It took Peter and Deadpool three hours to find it. 

 

They stood on either side of the door into Emerson’s loft.

Peter webbed Emerson’s feet to the ground as soon as he stepped into the apartment. Deadpool pressed the barrel of a gun to his head. 

“ _ Hola _ ,” Deadpool said. 

“ _ Jesus _ \--what the  _ fuck _ ,” Emerson hissed, hands partially raised. 

“Who do you work for?” Peter demanded. 

Emerson glared at him out of the corner of his eye. 

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” 

Deadpool pulled back the hammer on his gun. Emerson flinched. 

Peter eyed Deadpool, wondering if he would have time to web him if Deadpool decided to pull the trigger. 

“Who do you  _ work for _ ?” Peter asked again. 

Emerson bit down on his tongue so hard, it throbbed. He looked between the two supers, then took a breath to speak. 

 

_ Ivan Jacobi _ . The Big Bad Boss. 

“ _ He’s a fucking psychopath, okay?! Some sort of religious nutjob, I don’t fucking know. I’m not part of that stupid fucking cult thing they have going on. I just sell the drugs, okay, man? Okay?!”  _

Okay, Mr. Emerson. 

They left him webbed up in his own closet. 

 

Peter and Deadpool stared at the imposing warehouse that was, according to Emerson,  _ Khaos  _ headquarters. They stood on top of the roof of the opposite building. The street they were on was mostly empty. These were all storage warehouses. 

“So…” Deadpool started, he pulled his katana’s out of their sheaths, “I vote we go in guns a’blazin’, give every motherfucker in there a new hole to not-breathe out of, and be done by dinner.” 

Peter pushed one of Deadpool’s blades away, and crossed his arms, “vetoed. We’re doing this without killing.” 

Deadpool cracked his neck. 

“Welp, it’s not like I need permission. My employer hired me to take the leader of Khaos  _ down _ . And I have a 100% satisfaction rate to maintain, so, if you’d excuse me.” 

Peter grabbed Deadpool’s arm. 

“Hey!” He said. 

Deadpool turned back to him. Peter let go. 

“Are you stupid? You can’t just go in there and start killing people! You don’t even know if the ‘ _ leader’  _ is in there!” 

Deadpool huffed out an annoyed breath. 

Peter raised a placating hand. 

“Look, we can go in quietly. Take a look around. Figure out what’s actually going on.” 

Deadpool rolled his head on his shoulders. 

“Your logic really annoys me.”

They turned, and watched the building. Peter watched as two guys with automatic weapons passed out to the end of the alleyway between the  _ Khaos  _ building and the building adjacent to it. Well...that confirmed it then. They were in the right place. 

“Armed guards,” Peter reported. 

“Fun,” Deadpool responded, inspecting his nails, apparently through his gloves, as he continued not paying attention. 

Peter started scanning for cameras. They were not few in abundance. 

“Why don’t we come back tonight? I can probably get a jammer for the cameras, and there might be less people here.” 

Deadpool shrugged, as though it didn’t make a difference to him. 

Peter groaned. 

“Remind me again why we’re working together?” Peter asked, exasperated. 

Deadpool remained silent. Peter turned to find him appearing deep in thought. Then, Deadpool shrugged again. 

“I get lonely,” he said. 

“Right…” Peter said, and looked back at the warehouse.  _ And  _ he _ wanted to prove Tony wrong... _ God, he was an idiot. 

 

It was...pretty much common knowledge among the supers that  _ Deadpool  _ was actually Wade Wilson. Peter didn’t know  _ why  _ this was common knowledge, but figured it kinda made sense. Deadpool was a “no fucks” kinda guy. 

Peter thought about this while he took a shower. Oh, that sounded weird. Let it be clear, the fact that he was in the shower while thinking about Deadpool was  _ purely  _ coincidental. 

Deadpool was...a strange duck. That was an apt description. 110%  _ not  _ what he expected. A bit trigger happy--or-- _ katana _ happy. But...he’d listened so far when Peter said not to kill someone? Which, as to  _ why  _ he listened, Peter didn’t understand, but...hell, maybe Deadpool really  _ was  _ just lonely. And bored. Crazy. Loco. Tacos. 

Peter appreciated the tacos. 

 

They met back on the same rooftop at a 2:30am. Deadpool was there first, lying flat on his back, staring up at the starless sky. 

“Hey,” Peter said lowly as he landed softly on top of the gravel roof. 

Deadpool tilted his head back, effectively looking at Peter upside down. 

“Ayyo,” he said. 

Peter moved over to the edge of the building, crouching, looking over at the  _ Khaos  _ warehouse. All seemed quiet. There were a few lights on inside, it looked like, though. 

“No guards,” Deadpool said from behind him, still laying on the ground. 

“No?” Peter asked. 

Suddenly, Deadpool was crouched right beside him, shaking his head. 

“Hey, before we go in, can I ask you a question?” Peter asked on a whim. 

“If you’re wondering how I get my hair so shiny, the answer is that I use Loreal, but that’s a real tip tight trade secret, so don’t go spreading it around, ‘kay, Spidey? Privileged information.” 

“Why does everyone know your name? Like, you’re  _ real  _ name.” 

“‘Cause no one cares.” 

Peter blinked. Very casual answer. 

“That’s...sad,” Peter said, slightly taken aback. 

Deadpool paused, then shrugged, “what can I say, I’m secretly an angst filled grunge teen at heart.” 

Peter chortled, “I can see that.” 

 

Peter swung them both over silently to the rooftop of the  _ Khaos  _ warehouse. When they landed, Deadpool sighed dreamily, stumbling away from Peter like a dizzy maiden. 

“ _ Ah…. _ I could get used to that.” 

Peter huffed, and took out the electronics jammer he’d swiped from the Tower, turning it on. It would cause every security camera in the building to do ten second loops until Peter turned it off. 

“Let’s go.” 

Peter picked the lock, and then they were in the roofway stairwell. 

They moved quietly, Peter keeping an ear out, focusing on Spidey-Senses as much as possible. By the time they reached the bottom of the roof-access stairwell, facing the closed door that would open up to the rest of the building, it was beginning to smell like...chemicals? Of some kind? 

Peter listened at the door for a few seconds, and then deemed it safe enough to open. The hallway they stepped out into was empty, and dark. The chemical smell was coming heavily from the right, where a door was slightly ajar, light leaking in and pouring across the floor. Peter and Deadpool pressed against the wall and walked towards it, stopping behind it where they couldn’t be seen if someone looked this way. 

Peter listened. Noises on the other side. He peeked through the gap between the door and the hinge. He couldn’t see much, but what he did see sent a shock of cold down his spine. The edge of a cage, with someone inside. 

Then, someone stepped in front of the cage, and he hear scared whimpers. 

He glanced back at Deadpool, who was staring questioningly at him. Peter turned his head, and kept watching. The cage door was unlocked and opened. Peter cringed, every bone in his body straining to go out and help as a person was dragged kicking and screaming out of the cage by someone all in black. Peter’s hands curled into fists. He kicked the door open all the way so that it bounced off the wall. 

The two people, prisoner and captor, jumped as Peter and Deadpool burst into the room, lunging. 

The room was large, and there were several more cages, but the two Peter had seen were, thankfully, the only two in the room. 

The captor had a blue bandana hiding most of their face. They struggled to pull a gun from their belt at the same time as trying to keep hold of their prisoner. 

Peter kicked the gun out of their hand, then kicked them in the chest, sending them stumbling back, breaking their hold on the prisoner. Deadpool pursued the captor, covering their mouth and getting an arm around their throat, holding them tight, forcing them to pass out. 

Peter knelt in front of the prisoner, trying to calm their panicking. 

“Hey, it’s okay, it’s okay, we’re here to help,” he said to the woman who struggled in bound hands. He looked around for something sharp, found a knife on a table near the door they had just come from, and cut her free. 

The woman cried, throwing herself into Peter, sobbing into his chest. Peter rubbed her back. Deadpool was getting up, patting down the bad guy and removing his weapons. He then dragged him into a cage, locking it. 

“ _ Th-the-the-the others! _ ” The woman exclaimed, and Peter pulled back, holding the frantic woman’s face in his hands. 

“What others? There are others?” Peter asked as calmly as he could. 

She nodded, chest heaving, unable to suck in a full breath. 

“ _ Shh, shh... _ Calm down. What’s your name?” Peter asked. 

“ _ M-M-Myr-Myriam-m”  _

Peter nodded, “okay, it’s gonna be okay, okay, Myriam? Where are the others?” 

“They-they took them do-downstairs. I don’t-I don’t--they s-said they were going to- _ going to  _ kill us!” 

Peter looked up at Deadpool, who was already walking out of the room, back through the door they had come from. 

“Deadpool! Wait!” Peter said, standing up, pulling the woman to her feet. Peter took another fast look around the room. In the corner was a strange workbench type station with various bottles and containers set atop it. Maybe where the chemical smell was coming from. 

Peter pulled the woman out of the room, following after Deadpool. They passed the door that lead to the roof. He turned to the woman. 

“Myriam, I need you to go through this door, go upstairs, and wait on the roof, okay?” 

“N-No! Are you crazy! You can’t leave me!  _ You can’t leave me _ !” The woman shouted too loudly, starting to panic again. 

“Shh, no--Myriam, I  _ promise  _ I am  _ not  _ going to leave you. I need you to be safe, okay? You’ll be safe on the roof, okay? I’m gonna come get you, and get you out of here,” Peter assured her. 

She looked at him warily, but seemed to realize she didn’t really have any other choice. 

“It’s okay. You’re  _ safe  _ now, I promise,” Peter said, wondering if he  _ could  _ promise such a thing, but did anyway. 

Myriam reluctantly broke away from him, and disappeared through the roof access door. 

Peter turned, and ran to catch up with Deadpool. 

There were more stairs this way, going down, he ended up on Deadpool’s heel as they descended them as quickly and quietly as possible. 

“Where’s the girl?” Deadpool whispered quickly. 

“The roof,” Peter responded. 

They kept going. Into another hallway. Almost as soon as they touched down on the last stair, a door down the hall opened, someone coming out. Peter and Deadpool ducked into an open doorway across from the stairs immediately. A small storage closet. A rack of shelves of cleaning supplies to the left, a mop and bucket on the ground. The door closed quickly, and Peter winced at how loud it was. He and Deadpool pressed up against the walls on either side of the door. 

Peter glanced in Deadpool’s direction, but Deadpool was looking straight ahead. 

Peter heard two sets of footsteps walking in their direction, unhurried. 

Then, he heard the footsteps pause right outside the door. 

“ _ Who closed the door?”  _

Came a muffled voice. 

Peter set his head back against the wall, squeezing his eyes shut and cursing silently. The door handle rattled from the otherside, locked. 

“ _ Go get the keys,”  _ the same voice said. 

A different voice groaned in frustration. One set of footsteps walked away. 

As quietly as possibly, Peter slowly slipped away from the wall. Deadpool looked at him. Peter pointed towards the ceiling, then reached out towards Deadpool. Deadpool appeared confused behind his back, but grabbed Peter’s outstretched hand. Peter pulled him forward, and gestured with his other hand for Deadpool to squat down slightly. Deadpool bent his legs, and Peter stepped up on his thigh, using it as a stepladder, Peter pressed his hand to the ceiling firmly, then wrapped his legs around Deadpool’s torso. Deadpool stood up, understanding what Peter was trying to do. 

Peter heard footsteps in the hall again. Person number 2 was coming back with the keys.  _ Why the fuck did they need to get into the storage closet anyway?  _

Peter’s heart rate picked up substantially. He wrapped his free arm around Deadpool’s torso and hoisted him up with the arm and his legs so that he was pressed between him and the ceiling. They shifted until both Peter’s hands and feet were sticking to the ceiling, and Deadpool’s limbs were wrapped around Peter like a koala, only Deadpool was fucking massive, so his legs had to wrap mostly around Peter’s, ankles hooked underneath Peter’s knees. His arms wrapped around Peter’s back, pressing against his underarms, Deadpool’s chin hooked over Peter’s shoulder, and Peter felt like he was being smothered. 

Peter them both as closely to the ceiling as possible, officially feeling every inch of his body pressing into Deadpool’s. The chafing of their suits was not comfy.  _ Nothing  _ about this was comfy. 

The key jiggled in the lock. The door opened, and light poured in. 

Peter closed his eyes tightly, and hoped Deadpool’s suit was too thick the feel Peter’s heart jackrabbiting. 

The two walked into the closet as if everything was peachy keen. 

_ Don’tlookupdon’tlookupdon’tlookupdon’tlookupdon’tlookupdon’tlookdon’tlookupdon’tlookupdon’tlookup. _ Peter was tense all over. Deadpool wouldn’t. Stop.  _ Fidgeting _ . He squirmed, and adjusted his head, and curled his hands into fists, and Peter wanted to  _ murder  _ him. He tried to express his anger through telepathy, thinking very exclamatory frustrated, homicidal thoughts in Deadpool’s direction. 

They took the mop and bucket and left, leaving the door open behind them. 

Peter let out a breath quietly. He waited until their footsteps were gone and he heard another door open a close, and then he dropped to the floor. 

Holding Deadpool bridal style. 

“ _ Ooh!  _ Carry me over the threshold, baby!  _ Damnit _ , I  _ knew  _ I should have worn my wedding dress!” 

Peter dropped Deadpool unceremoniously to the floor at his feet with a roll of his eyes. 

“Can’t you stay  _ still _ ?!” Peter exclaimed. 

“Hey, what do you expect! It’s spandex, and leather, and  _ copious  _ displays of  _ ridiculous  _ spider-strength.” 

Peter blinked. Sifted through the sentence. 

“I didn’t know you knew words like  _ ‘copious’ _ ,” Peter responded drily. 

Deadpool sat up. 

“Make love. Not hate,” Deadpool said solemnly, shaking his head. 

Peter stepped over him, and peeked out into the hallway, glancing left and right. 

“Come on,” he said. 

Deadpool followed him.

 

Peter listened outside the door the two supply closet assholes had originally come out of. He heard sounds, but they sounded like they were coming from below him. 

He glanced back at Deadpool, then cautiously opened the door. 

It was a catwalk railing above the main, open floor of the warehouse. The smell of chemicals was back and it was prevalent.

There was also a lot of whimper-crying going on down below.

Peter crouched, and slowly inched out onto the catwalk. On the ground below, no one was paying attention. There were about a dozen people, bandanas pulled up to mask the lower portion of theirs faces, and black hoods pull up to mask the top portion. Three of them held automatic rifles, pointed at five hostages kneeling on the ground between them, hands tied behind their backs.  _ So much for “less people here” _ . 

“ _ My brothers...I have been told by the great Khaos that these abominations who you see before you are not your fellow man. They are horrible, monstrous creatures who are only pretending to be human beings such as you and I!”  _

A hooded man in front of the hostages declared loudly, voice echoing off the walls of the warehouse, arms raised in mock-holyness. 

“This guy’s a fuckin’ nutjob,” Deadpool whispered from where he crouched next to me. I nodded slowly in agreement. 

“Must be Jacobi,” I whispered back. 

“Bring the medicine!” Ivan Jacobi, or,  _ Holy Mister Crazy _ ordered from below. 

One of the hoods pulled out a glass vile of white pills.  _ Canine _ . 

Peter tapped Deadpool on the shoulder, and jutt his thumb over his shoulder towards the wall. 

“I’ll go up and over them. Web the three with the rifles,” Peter said, then pointed down the catwalk to where there were stairs leading down to the ground where everyone else was. “You get to those stairs and down as fast as possible when I do. We’ll take everyone out as fast as possible, and secure the hostages.” 

Deadpool nodded. 

“Okie Dokie,” he said. 

Peter turned to start climbing the wall, then stopped. He turned back towards Deadpool. 

“ _ No _ killing,” he said seriously. 

Deadpool half shrugged, half nodded. 

“I  _ mean  _ it,” Peter hissed. 

“Better get goin’, Spidey,” Deadpool whispered. 

Peter didn’t have time to argue. Deadpool was right. He got going. 

 

He crawled quietly and slowly across the high ceiling. The group of hooded  _ Khaos  _ figured, and the hostages were at least thirty feet down. The man who had spoken before, Holy Mister Crazy, who Peter suspected was The Boss, was watching as the hostages were force fed  _ Canine  _ pills. They struggled, but their captors shoved the pills between their teeth and held their hands over their mouths and noses. 

Peter glanced anxiously over to the catwalk. Deadpool was over by the stairs. When he saw Peter, he shot him a cheery thumbs up. 

Peter took a breath, and looked down at the three captors carrying rifles.  _ 3, 2, 1-  _

Peter webbed them fast in quick succession, plastering the guns and arms to their chests, knocking them over onto the floor. They shouted in surprise. The hostages shouted. Everyone shouted. 

Peter shot a web at the ceiling, and swung himself down, planting his feet in the chest of one of the captors, sending him to the ground. As soon as he feet touched the floor, a katana came whizzing past his head, burying into the thigh of Holy Mister Crazy, who screamed in agony. 

Peter didn’t have time to think about that. Someone swung at his head, and he ducked, then kicked his foot out and swept the attacker’s legs out from under him. He stood, quickly webbing him to the floor at the same time as dodging someone else’s lunge. He shoved the next attacker to the ground, webbing him next to his friend. 

_ 6 left _ . 

Deadpool was on the scene now, three attackers on him. 

“ _ Whose idea was the black on blue bandanas? That’s poor graphic design.”  _ Peter heard Deadpool say. 

An attacker pointed a gun at Peter, and Peter kicked it out of his hand, punching the dude in the sternum and sending him flying back. Peter felt a fist in his kidneys and a battle cry, instead of spinning around, Peter reached behind him and pulled  _ this  _ attacker over his shoulder, slamming him against the ground and webbing him down quickly. 

“- _ while I understand the appeal, I’d lay off on the kool-aid.” _

Peter looked up, and webbed the legs of the attacker who had pointed the gun at him, now running to get away. He went tumbling to the ground, and hit his head hard on the cement floor.

_ 4 _ .

Peter glanced towards Deadpool. The three who he had seen him fighting were now all on the ground, clutching wounds.

1.

Peter spun around, searching for him. He was walking backwards, dragging a sobbing hostage along with him, holding a knife to their throat. 

“ _ NO!”  _ The hostage cried, struggling hard to get away. 

“BACK THE FUCK UP! BACK THE FUCK UP!” The captor cried, blade pressed hard against the hostage’s throat, blood starting to bead up. 

“ _ PLEASE _ !” They cried, and Peter’s heart thumped. 

“Let them go,” Peter said evenly. 

“FUCK OFF!” 

Peter accessed the situation. 

He raised his hands slowly, as if in surrender. 

“Okay, alright…” Peter said calmly, hands level with his head. He slowly started turning them sideways, inch by inch, as though it were unconscious. He glanced towards Deadpool, who was tense, one hand behind his back. Peter assumed he was holding on to a pistol in his belt. Because of the mask, Peter didn’t know if Deadpool looked over at him, but hopefully, when he did what he was about to do, he’d respond the way Peter anticipated. If he knew Deadpool at all, he would. 

Peter inhaled. The attacker was panicked, taking small steps back, struggling to keep hold of the weeping hostage. Peter watched the knife. It jolted a half inch away as the hostage tripped over their attackers foot slightly. 

_ Right _ -

Peter flicked his wrists forward, and shot webs at the hostage’s neck. 

Deadpool pulled his gun-- _ fastest gunslinger in the west _ \--and shot the attacker in the head. Neat little hole between the eyes. 

The attacker fell, knife clattering away. The hostage fell too, gasping, airway gut off by the thick, tightly wound webbing suffocating them. 

Peter rushed forward, picking up the knife that was dropped. 

The webs around the hostage’s throat were already partially cut, a thin, frayed slash that could have easily been bare flesh. Peter held the hostage’s head still, and cut through the rest of the webs carefully. As soon as he did, the hostage sprung up, gasping in lungfuls of air. 

“I’m sorry, are you okay?!” He asked frantically. 

The hostage nodded, still gasping. 

“Thank you,” they said. 

Peter patted their back. He looked up, and over at the attacker’s corpse. He felt a pang in his chest. 

_ I’m sorry.  _

He turned his head, searching out Deadpool. When he found him, his heart dropped. He stood in front of Jacobi, who was lying still on the ground, eyes wide open, a bit of foam dropped from the corner of his mouth to the floor. He was dead. Peter’s brows knit together in confusion. 

Deadpool’s katana was still sticking out of his thigh. He leaned down, and retrieved it, yanking it out smoothly.

“ _ Love it  _ when they do my job for me,” Deadpool said, sheathing both katanas. 

Peter closed his eyes, and exhaled deeply. 

 

They sat on the edge of the roof, and watched from above as down below ambulances and police cars were securing the building,  _ Khaos  _ members, and hostages. Well, Peter watched. Deadpool leaned back on his hands and swung his feet while looking up at the sky, whistling something tuneless.

“How much are you going to get paid for this?” Peter asked. 

“ _ Hmmmm _ ?” Deadpool inquired, turning his head in Peter’s direction. 

Peter raised his hands to make air-quotes, “for  _ ‘taking down’ Khaos _ ?” 

Deadpool  _ “Ah _ ”’d, then shrugged. 

“Can’t remember. But if I agreed on it, then it ain’t nothin’ to scoff at, lemme tell  _ you _ . Mama gotta get her coin, you know? Some people ask me to do the most  _ outrageous  _ things for  _ pennies _ , Spides, I swear to Steve Irwin, it’s like they think I’m some second class prostitute. They don’t realize they’re paying for  _ Disney World _ . Not ‘land’...‘ _ World _ ’.” Deadpool mimed his hands like holding the globe of the Earth between them. 

Peter chortled. 

“How dare they,” he said without much inflection, trying to imagine how much one gets paid to take someone else’s life.  _ How much are  _ you _ worth? How about you? How about  _ YOU _?  _

Deadpool cracked his neck.

Below, EMT’s rolled out two black body bags. 

And they put six alive hostages in ambulances. The one who Peter had sent up to the roof, and swung down before the cops had even showed up, stopped before letting themselves be ushered into one. She looked up, and waved shyly. Peter waved back. 

“So...what now?” Peter asked, turning to look back at Deadpool. It was a stupid question. He knew “ _ what now” _ .  _ Now _ , he left and went back to the Tower, told Tony that  _ Khaos _ was taken care of--or as taken care of as Peter would have to do. The police would take care of the rest. And then, he went home, showered, and didn’t sleep through his 6:30 alarm to go to Calculus II. 

“ _ Mmmm…. _ Pancakes?” Deadpool asked, rolling his head on his shoulders to look over at Peter. 

Peter laughed shortly, then shrugged. 

“Why not?” 

 

They sat across from each other in a corner booth of Denny’s. The waiter didn’t so much as look at them strange, just passed them menus and stared blankly with tired eyes. They were the only ones in the restaurant. 

“Neverending pancakes and a side of bacon. Hey, do you know those, like, little Mickey Mouse shaped pancakes? Yeah, I want you to make some of those, but instead of Mickey Mouse, could you do, like, little penises? Thanks, yeah, you’re the man, Mark!” Deadpool shot finger guns at the waiter, whose name tag  _ did  _ in fact read “ _ Mark _ ”. Steve stared at Deadpool for a moment longer, and then looked over towards Peter. 

Peter blinked. 

“Uh...yeah...same. Neverending pancakes. And--coffee please,” he ordered. 

Mark took their menus back, said nothing, and walked away. 

Peter put his elbow up on the table and dropping his cheek onto his hand. 

Peter grinned a bit underneath his mask.

Deadpool rested his hands on the table top and folded them. He clicked his tongue a couple times. Drummed his fingers against the back of his opposite hand. 

“Man, this is taking a lot time.” 

Peter made an amused sound, then his face fell a bit. He wondered how Deadpool could be so casually when he had literally  _ just  _ shot someone. Killed someone. 

Another few seconds of silence, and before Deadpool could break it again, Peter asked: 

“Are you as crazy as they say?” 

Deadpool looked at him. Tilted his head. 

“Who says I’m crazy?” 

Peter stared back, then blinked. He looked away. 

“No one--I mean...just...I don’t know, I guess...” Peter winced. 

“Well crazy is as crazy does.” 

“You just ordered dick-shaped pancakes,” Peter said bluntly.

“Everyone calls ‘Creative’, _ ‘crazy’,  _ when someone’s the first to do it. That’s why Van Gogh died of scurvy.” 

Peter’s eyes narrowed. He opened his mouth, but couldn’t seem to find the words. Finally, he physically shook himself out of his... _ shook _ ness, and sat up straight. 

“Okay.” 

“ _ I think _ …” Deadpool started, and Peter was raptly interested in whatever was going to come out of the Merc With the Mouth’s mouth. “...that there’s a  _ moral  _ to this night.” 

Peter raised an eyebrow. 

“Is there?” 

“ _ Yes _ . It’s that religion is  _ never  _ the answer.” 

Peter nodded his head slowly. 

“Ayn Rand was right all along,” Deadpool continued. 

Peter put his elbow back up on the table and this time resting his chin on his fist. 

“Was she?” Peter asked. 

“Howard Roark would  _ never _ .” 

Peter chortled, “and how is that the moral of _tonight_?” He asked. 

Deadpool slapped his palm on the table top, signifying the finality of his next words. He raised and pointed his finger at Peter. 

“ _ Exactly _ ,” he said. 

Peter giggled. 

Mark was back with their pancakes. 

Peter was actually quite surprised to see that Deadpool’s were, in fact, dick-shaped. 

Deadpool rolled his mask up to the bridge of his nose. Once again his scars were...disconcerting. If only because:  _ Fuck...what has to happen to do that to a person _ ? 

But Peter wasn’t an asshole, and he  _ certainly  _ didn’t judge people by their physical appearances, flaws-or-otherwise. He quickly disregarded the scars, and reached for his little packet of butter. 

Deadpool was drowning his pancakes ( _ dickcakes?)  _ in syrup. Peter waited his turn, then took the syrup from him and did the same. He rolled his mask up to his nose, and licked his lips. 

All-in-all, Peter ate about fourteen pancakes, and several sides of bacon. He was pretty sure Deadpool ate more. 

Mark came over with the bill, and it was only then that Peter remembered  _ oh yeah, I don’t have my fucking wallet.  _

He stared at the receipt, then up at Deadpool. 

“Uh….” he said, feeling his ears burning. 

Deadpool winced. 

“Yeah, me neither,” Deadpool said, catching on to the dilemma at hand. 

Peter cleared his throat. 

Mark waited. 

Deadpool raised his hand. 

“How ‘bout a  _ crisp  _ high-five?” Deadpool asked. 

Peter dropped his head into his hands. 

“ _ Oh my god…”  _

Mark sighed. 

Peter raised his head. 

“Look, I--you know me, right? Like...you’ve seen me on the news and stuff? I’m Spiderman. And I swear, absolutely, right now, up and down that I will leave and go get some cash right now and bring it back to you-- _ ten minutes _ , tops. I am so sorry,” Peter babbled, unbelieving himself that he was using being Spiderman as an excuse for not being able to pay for  _ pancakes _ .

Mark sighed again, and waved his hand as though it didn’t really matter to him. He walked away. 

“Big tip coming your way, friend! Thank you so much!” Peter called after him, then slumped back into the booth. “Fuck,” he breathed. 

Deadpool cackled. 

“You got a real talent in this whole groveling business. Hey, if someone were to have, say...fourteen parking tickets, think you could work your teary-eyed white girl magic? Asking for a friend.” 

Peter glanced in his direction. Deadpool’s mask was back down and in place, and it made Peter realize that his was still partially up. He rolled it back down. 

“Honestly, though, who would call the cops on freaking  _ Spiderman  _ if they dine-and-ditch? Don’t your hero points at  _ least  _ buy you some free pancakes? This city owes you!” Deadpool said, raising his fist at the end of his sentence in outrage. 

“The mark on my soul would be too great. I’d be condemned to hell immediately; no takesies-backsies,” Peter replied solemnly. 

Deadpool gasped in horror: “ _ No takesies-backsies!?”  _

Peter slid out of the booth. Deadpool slid as well, and bounced on after him. Peter waved shortly at Mark, assuring him that he  _ would  _ be back with the money owed. 

Outside on the sidewalk, he and Deadpool turned to each other. 

“Right, well...I’ve never met anyone quite like you, Wade,” Peter said, smirking slightly. 

“I choose to take that as a compliment,” Deadpool responded. 

Peter shrugged, “that’s your prerogative.” 

“Thank you,” Deadpool replied, falsely sincere. 

“See you around, Deadpool,” Peter said. 

“My tingle-senses are telling me we’re going to be best friends,” Deadpool said, highly emphasising the words, grasping thin air between his wiggling fingers. 

Peter raised his eyebrows as he took a few stepped backwards. 

“Are they?” He asked, “I thought that was  _ my  _ shtick.” 

“I’m stealing your thing, Spidey!” Deadpool called, even as Peter raised his hand and shot a web at the building two down from the Denny’s. 

“ _ Next thing you know they’ll be calling me Spiderpool!”  _ Deadpool screamed after him, even as Peter was swinging away in the opposite direction, smiling humorously underneath his mask. 


	3. Three Types of People In The World: the Wise, the Runners, and the Dumbasses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Feat. the first scenes of Wade POV.

All good things must end. 

If you count a day and night of culty crime fighting with Deadpool a “ _ good _ ” thing. 

Peter had. Subconsciously. 

“ _ Deadpool.  _ Seriously?” 

Peter was righteously indignant at Tony’s tone of voice. 

“Problem?” Peter asked. 

“Uh...yeah.  _ Problem _ . I don’t usually like to repeat myself, but,  _ what the hell are you doing working with Deadpool? _ ” Tony asked, crossing his arms. 

Peter sat down on a stool next to one of Tony’s tables. When Tony called him and told him to come up to the lab before his patrol half an hour ago, Peter had felt that something like this was about to happen. 

“Look, I did what you asked me to. I took care of Khaos. I wouldn’t have been able to do that so quickly if Deadpool hadn’t been helping me. Plus, we saved six hostages.  _ And _ , if I  _ hadn’t  _ been there, Deadpool probably just would have plowed through all those guys without a second thought.” 

“Exactly. That’s why we don’t  _ work  _ with him,” Tony said, as though it were obvious. Trying to explain something very simple to some very stupid. 

Peter’s brows knit together. 

“So, what you’re saying is that I shouldn’t have worked with Deadpool, and let the bodycount of last night go up  _ substantially _ ?”

“Did you hear what you just  _ said _ ? If you hadn’t been there, Deadpool would have killed all those people, and  _ maybe  _ saved the hostages.” 

“He  _ didn’t  _ kill anybody, though,” Peter argued stubbornly. 

“Doesn’t change the fact that he has, would, and will.” 

Peter scrubbed his hand through his hair in frustration.  _ hasawouldawilla.  _

“Look, I’m just trying to look out for you,” Tony said, “look out for  _ everybody _ .” 

_ Bottom of the totem pole, Spidey? CAN relate.  _

“Peter?” Tony asked. 

“Yeah, no,” Peter said, looking up. He kept his voice even; countenance calm. He nodded. 

“I understand,” he told Tony. 

His not-whole-truth pacified Tony. 

 

Peter did understand. Truly. Got where Tony was coming from. Deadpool had a history, it was smart not to work with him. Logical. And, Peter was only sixteen when he first became Spiderman almost three years ago. Around the same time he became an Avenger. Tony, Steve, Natasha...they were all his mentors. The Big Kids. The OG’s. They looked out for him. They didn’t trust him 

Peter pulled on his suit as he thought, frustration furrowing his brow. 

He desperately wanted to be able to open himself up and see what was true for himself, like a pathologist taking a scalpel to a cadaver.  _ And  _ this  _ is the reason for  _ that  _ here, and this over  _ here  _ is why  _ this  _ happens, and over  _ there  _ is the reason for  _ this. 

Was he being petulant by wanting to have more trust among the others? Did he know any better? No. He didn’t know anything. 

So why the  _ fuck  _ was this so frustrating? 

Also, since  _ when  _ did he relate to Deadpool? 

Tony was probably right. Maybe working on the whole Khaos thing with Deadpool was kind of a mistake. Obviously, it’s done and over with, and there was no changing that. A learning experience. One that maybe Peter  _ needed  _ to have, in order to grow as a person. A hero. 

Peter just needed to calm the fuck down. Sit tight. Figure himself out. Trust his mentors. That’s what he  _ should  _ do. 

Then Captain America walked in. 

 

Peter stared at the corner of Steve’s mouth as he talked, only occasionally flicking his eyes up to meet the other man’s. 

“Kid...I know you were just trying to do what you thought was best. Smartest. But working with bad guys is never the way to go. We have to be better than that,” Steve said, sincere as...we Steve Rogers. 

“Dea--” Peter stopped himself. Licked his teeth and dropped his eyes to the floor.  _ Deadpool’s not a bad guy _ . He was about to say. But how could he say something like that? It wasn’t exactly true, was it? 

Nevertheless, Peter believed it. Maybe that was proof of his own naivety. 

“I get it...you want to help him, right? Change him? Make him a better person, or give him a chance to be one?” 

Peter wanted Steve to stop talking. 

“It’s not that deep,” Peter said, and looked up at Steve. Peter shrugged, “I thought he’d be useful to the mission. He was.” 

Steve looked disappointed, “that can be a messy situation, Peter.” 

“Like you’ve never worked with someone you don’t particularly like o agree with as a means to a good end,” Peter said, and if his voice was a little more annoyed than he intended, sue him. He was impatient to leave now. 

Steve nodded slowly twice. “In a pinch, maybe. When the situation was dire enough. It’s a question of judgement, Peter.” 

“Whose, mine of yours?” Peter asked before he could stop himself. 

Steve paused for a moment. Some part of Peter (way up in the nosebleed seats of his head) was proud of himself for rendering Captain America surprised. Another part wanted to take it back. 

Steve closed his mouth. 

“What’s going on, Peter?” He finally asked. 

“I made one goddamn decision and the world ended apparently,” Peter said, disbelieving and petulant. 

Steve raised an eyebrow, “really?” He inquired drily at Peter’s dramatics. 

Peter looked away. Steve shifted to his other foot. 

“Look, no one’s saying you were wrong--” 

It was Peter’s turn to raise his eyebrow. Steve continued, 

“I’m just making sure--we’re a  _ team _ , Peter. We have each other’s backs.” 

Peter looked back at him coldly. 

“Yeah? Get off mine,” Peter said, then brushed past him. Steve didn’t follow. 

Peter pulled on his mask, and practically ran to leave for patrol.

 

Swinging through the city, Peter could clear his head somewhat. He having the police scanner feed through his comm set in his ear. So far, there hadn’t been much happening. He’d been alone with his thoughts. Projectiling through New York City like a seasoned acrobat. 

He didn’t know if he could explain to the Avengers that he didn’t think he knew better or something. He didn’t think he had nothing left to learn, and that he never made a bad decision. To be honest, he didn’t particularly feel like trying to explain. 

And then there was trying to explain it to himself. He was pissed. Pissed that his supposed  _ teammates  _ didn’t trust his judgement. Did he deserve that? Fuck, who was he to know? All he knew was that he felt like Batman’s kid sidekick. 

Right. He was supposed to be  _ clearing  _ his head. Organizing everything into neat, labelled boxes. The Avengers--or at least Tony and Steve...mostly Tony--didn’t trust his judgement. Could he blame them? He was young, inexperienced compared to them. It was only logical that they would question him. They were trying to teach him. Help him. Guide him. 

Did Peter want their guidance? 

For a long time he did. In a lot of ways...some ways...he still did. 

However, that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt when they looked at him like he was crazy. Mistrusting. Passing off his reasoning without hardly even considering it. 

All Peter wanted to do was help people. And the way he did that was being an Avenger. No. The way he did that was by being a hero. 

So, what makes a hero? 

Million dollar question. History’s gone back and forth and sideways on that one since forever, right? 

Okay. So what made a hero to  _ Peter  _

Putting others before you. Helping to the best of your ability. Using whatever powers and skills you were given for good. To save people who needed it. 

Forgiveness was part of being a hero. Second chances, even when they weren’t entirely warranted. Wasn’t that part of being a hero? Peter didn’t want to be some jaded, war-cold, hardened harbinger of “ _ justice _ ” who went around acting like God, branding “good” people and “bad” people. 

Peter believed in actions. Some actions  _ were  _ irredeemable, and some people were irredeemable as well, but Peter believed that, case to case, individual to individual, people were capable of growth. Change. Being better (or at least  _ different _ ) human beings than they were the day before. 

Case in point.  

And that’s where Deadpool came in. 

What were Deadpool’s actions? Murder. Something Peter didn’t condone 99 out of 100 situations, because Peter also believed in exceptions and that all of our morals and beliefs are tested and broken at least a few times in our lives. 

Deadpool had taken other human beings lives.  _ Many  _ other human beings’ lives, if Peter were to guess. He had probably worked for horrible causes as much as he had worked for good ones. 

Peter landed on the rooftop of a skyscraper, landing hard on his feet, but he barely felt in. He took a deep breath in, and then released it in one long drawl. 

If Peter was in any way affiliated with Deadpool, did that make him second-hand responsible for the people Deadpool killed? Did it mean he was condoning it? Or just that he was a hypocrite akin to straight people who don’t really have a problem with gay people, but all their friends are blatantly homophobic. 

Peter looked down at the bustling street below him. Chokingly full of people. All sorts of people, whose lives Peter couldn’t begin to guess at. Not really. All of them had different beliefs, and morals, and opinions. And they all walked right next to each other. Most of them probably wouldn’t if they could read the others’ minds. We all know exactly how the world is and all that. But they walk together, because they don’t know. He’s gay. She’s muslim. They’ve had an abortion. She’s an Orthodox Jew. He’s in a polyamorous relationship. They’re a porn star. He’s an abusive husband. She’s avidly against the death penalty. They’re a hardcore vegan. He’s dying of cancer. He’s against vaccines. She’s a flat earther. They’ve killed someone but never been caught for it. She’s been in jail seven times. They lost visitation rights with their kids. 

Peter couldn’t know them. And so he couldn’t judge them. Not a single one of them. He had to know them first before he could decide what he was and was not willing to forgive them for. 

Peter didn’t want to know Deadpool. He wanted to know Wade Wilson. 

Suddenly, over the police scanner, he heard the words “ _ bank robbery in progress” _ . He waited to hear an address, and then he stepped off the building. 

 

Wade rose from bed in the most biblical sense. 

He groaned, stretched obscenely, and then walked over to the kitchen. He opened the fridge. Most of the to-go boxes were empty, but the pizza box he pulled out and shook had something rattling around inside, so he tossed it on the kitchen counter and flicked it open. 

He picked up a slightly foul smelling piece, and took a large bite. He sniffed, and looked up, staring across his apartment, seemingly at nothing in particular. Staring at you. 

“You may be waiting for some deep inner monologue about my thoughts and feelings on Spiderman. That would be the most obvious reason for this scene right here,” he said, still chewing loudly.

“Well, the thing about that is that this scene really serves no purpose. It’s just another beat the writer felt like this chapter needed.” 

Wade turned around, and leaned back against the counter, crossing one of his feet over the other. He stared in the other direction now, towards the fridge he had just come from. 

“But while we’re all here, we might as well accomplish  _ something  _ useful. So. You’re here for Spideypool.  _ Aren’t we all _ , amiright? Thing is, I don’t really know enough about the guy to form an opinion--”

**He’s funny.**

“--sure, he’s funny--” 

_ And cute as a fucking button. _

“And cute.  _ And  _ actually seemed to not mind my presence. To be honest, dear reader, I’m not entirely sure what to do with that.” 

Wade lowered his gaze and chewed thoughtfully, like a goat chewing their cud. 

_ God... _ could Wade remember what it was like to have Spiderman’s arms wrapped around him. He was touch-starved, sue him!

Cud. 

Ever heard a more disgusting word than that? It’s the mixture of food remnants, mucus, and salvia that goats are constantly grinding their teeth into. If you’ve ever seen a goat, you know what I’m talking about. 

Just sounds like a bad euphemism for vagina. 

“Usually I like to think of myself as the lone wolf type, you know? Like--James Bond, or...some other person who says things like ‘ _ I Work Alone’  _ in dramatic, angsty voices. Batman! There’s one. How could I forget Batman? Yup. I’m a regular old Batman.  _ Fear me _ .” 

**You’re a regular old dumbass** . 

“Hey, words hurt.” 

_ Not as bad as cancer.  _

Wade pointed at nothing above his head. 

“You’re right and you  _ should  _ say it.” 

“--Anyway, it never hurts to have a friend, though, ya know? Well, I mean...until it  _ does _ . You know, like all the times it has in the  _ past _ , but we won’t get into that right now! Fighting crime side by side has a ring to it that I’ve never heard. And, we already have the matching spandex!”

Wade looked down again. Something in his eyes wasn’t matching up to his chipper tone.

_ We all know you’re like a fourteen year old girl with her first text back on the inside.  _

Wade glanced over at the other end of the counter where his mask rested half on the countertop, half draping off. Wade considered, running his tongue back and forth along the ridges of his top teeth.

“Who knows? Maybe if I go out, I’ll stumble upon the bug…” 

**Well that’s a terrible idea.**

Wade dropped the pizza, grabbed his mask, and dashed from his apartment.

 

After a couple blocks, Peter started hearing sirens. He turned onto the next street, and saw the bank. He also saw someone standing on the roof, crouching by the door. Peter’s eyes narrowed. He launched a web at the corner of the building, and swung himself towards it. 

The man standing on the roof noticed him, and Peter saw a look of struck horror on his face before he whipped a gun out. 

The man raised his gun and fired a shot at the same time Peter’s feet touched the rooftop. He immediately dropped, tucking himself into a roll towards the man. He bounced up, kicked the gun out of the robber’s hand, and then webbed his hands together so that he lost his balance and fell flat on his face, cursing. Peter took the opportunity to web his legs as well. 

The roof access door burst open. Two more guys came running out, wearing rather cliche balaclavas, and holding two lumpy looking duffle bags each. 

They froze when they saw Peter and their fallen fellow bank robber. One pulled out a gun, and Peter webbed him quickly. Meanwhich, the other had dove out of the way, and blocked Peter’s web with one of his duffle bags when he turned on him before throwing it at Peter. Peter shoved it away before it hit him, and quickly pounced on the bank robber, ducking a sloppy right-hook and sweeping the man’s legs out from underneath him. The man fell on his ass hard. Peter grabbed him by the front of his shirt, and yanked him up onto his toes. Their faces were inches away from each other, and the man struggled, eyes wide. 

“ _ HEY! SPIDEY!”  _

Peter froze. 

_ Oh you gotta be kidding me… _

Peter looked craned his neck to look over the edge of the building. Way down on the ground, Deadpool stood, staring up towards the roof. When he saw Peter, he started waving his arms in wide, sweeping arcs. 

“ _ Hey, Spidey!”  _ He exclaimed. 

Peter looked back at the criminal he had by the front of his shirt, who, after apparently also having looked down at Deadpool, looked back at him. The dude looked just as confused as Peter felt.  

 

Peter left the robbers webbed up like birthday presents for the cops with the bags of money on top of the roof, making sure he heard the Boys in Blue in the stairwell before swinging off into the proverbial sunset. 

Now, he stood in an alleyway a few buildings down. With Deadpool. 

“What are you doing here?” Peter asked. 

Deadpool shrugged, “well, I  _ was  _ going to rob the bank, but it seems like some asshats beat me to it.” 

Peter raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. 

A few beats of silence passed between them. 

“I can’t tell if you’re joking or not,” Peter said. 

Deadpool grinned on the other side of his mask. 

“That’s my prerogative.” 

Peter narrowed his eyes, wondering what the hell that meant. 

Deadpool opened his mouth to speak. 

A very near scream made them both jump and turn to the opening of the alleyway. 

Less than fifty feet away, someone was shoving a woman against the brick wall, trying to rip their purse out of their hands. 

Peter jumped immediately into action, and ran towards them. 

“Seriously? Attacking someone  _ literally  _ thirty feet away from Spiderman? I’ll have whatever he’s having!”

Peter heard Deadpool comment from behind him, before he followed Peter. 

Peter stopped as he neared them, realizing that the man had a knife, currently pointed at the woman, who was also holding the hand of a crying little boy at her side. 

Deadpool stopped beside Peter. 

The man looked over at them, eyes raking over their costumes without letting go of the terrified woman. 

“Where’s the kink convention?” He asked. 

“Right here, buddy,” Deadpool said, and unsheathed his katanas. 

Peter made to stop Deadpool, but the man’s eyes widened, and he dropped the knife, turning to run. Peter webbed him before he could get more than three steps, and he fell hard onto the pavement. The woman flinched, then picked up her son, holding him to her tightly. 

“Are you okay?” Peter asked, turning to her. 

She swallowed, and nodded. 

“Call the police,” he told her. 

With a shaking hand, she started to dig her phone out of her purse. 

Peter turned back to the man, struggling on the ground, cursing. 

“Look, just let me go, man! Just let me go!” The man exclaimed frantically. Peter pulled him up, and shoved him against the opposite wall before webbing him more securely. 

The woman was on the phone with the police. Peter could hear the 911 operator on the other end calming her down, asking her for her location. 

Peter turned back to Deadpool, whose katanas were sheathed. Dead slapped and rubbed his gloved hands together. 

“I don’t know about you, but preventing purse-robberies makes me ravenous.” 

Peter almost smiled. 

 

Honestly, Wade had not actually expected to find Spiderman. He definitely didn’t expect him to come along with him to get food. And now, they sat on the edge of Tony’s Tacos two-story roof, swinging their feet, munching on hard taco shells filled with almost-meat and cheese that didn’t quite have a flavor. 

“Were you actually gonna...you know,” 

Wade looked over at Spiderman, who gestured at his katanas. 

“Slice and dice ‘em? Nah. You can always tell the runners from the dumbasses.” 

Spiderman turned his head back, shoulders deflating, almost like he was relieved. 

“Oh,” he responded. 

Something pinged in Wade’s ribcage. Not a squeeze, or a cinch, or a pang, or anything else. No. Don’t get confused. It was specifically a  _ ping _ . The ricochet of a metal bullet off a metal wall onto another metal surface. 

“Though if he  _ had  _ been a dumbass, it wouldn’t have made much of a difference,” Wade added, and effectively bit into half his taco. 

Spiderman chortled. Wade paused imperceptibly. 

“Say, Bug Boy...aren’t you an Avenger or somein’?” Wade asked around a mouthful of taco. 

Spiderman glanced over at him without fully turning his head. 

“ _ Bug Boy _ ?” He repeated, sounding unimpressed. 

Wade shrugged, “Spiderman, Bug Boy, Lovebug, Spiderbabe, Web-Head, Spandex-Arachnid…” Wade trailed off, and grinned over at the other man. “Why settle for one when you can have the whole rainbow?” 

Spiderman scoffed, “I believe in monogamy,” he replied easily. 

“What’s woodworking got to do with it?” Wade asked. 

Spiderman grinned, and his mask was pulled up to his nose to eat his taco, which meant that Wade could see it, and  _ Holy Damn.  _

 

Peter had yet to decide whether or not this was a good idea. 

This was the conclusion he had come to, right? He wanted to know Wade Wilson? 

So who the fuck was Wade Wilson? 

“You never answered my question, Spidey.” 

Peter looked over. Deadpool was crunching his taco. 

“What?” Peter asked. 

“ _ ‘Vengering _ . Are you of the religion?” 

Peter looked back at his taco. 

“Oh...yeah,” Peter said. 

“Do you have, like, official merch and shit?” 

Peter snorted, and glanced sideways at him. 

“Yeah, totally,” Peter said sarcastically. 

Deadpool nodded. 

“You know, I always kinda wondered about the name  _ Avengers _ ...it implies that something has already been done that is in need of Vengeance. So, y’all really aren’t so much about the preemptiveness, as much as a swat team, right?” 

Peter shrugged, “I didn’t come up with the name.” 

Deadpool cackled. 

“Who did?” 

Peter paused, taco halfway raised up to his mouth, mind blank. 

“...Oh fuck,” he said finally, laughing. 

Deadpool giggled along with him. 

“They really don’t like you, you know,” Peter said after a minute. 

“ _ Hmm _ ?” Deadpool mused, “Gonna have to be a little more specific.” 

“The Avengers. The other Avengers, I mean,” Peter said. 

Deadpool finished his second taco, and spoke with his mouth obnoxiously full: 

“ _ Oh, yeah, I know. _ ” 

Peter took another bite of his own second taco. Then, suddenly, his shoulder was nudged by Deadpool’s own.

“Do  _ you _ like me?” Deadpool drew out childishly, drawing out the ‘ _ youuuuu’ _ . 

Peter breathed out. 

“ _ Please _ ,” he replied sarcastically. 

Deadpool smiled, and put his arm behind him, bracing his palms on the rooftop and leaning his weight back on them. 

Peter wet his lips, and bit down on his bottom one, wondering if he should continue. 

“They told me it was a colossally bad idea to work with you. You know, with the whole Khaos thing.” Peter glanced back at Deadpool, who grinned like it was a compliment, looking back at him. 

“Well...they weren’t  _ wrong _ ,” Deadpool said chipperly. 

Peter raised an eyebrow, corner of his mouth quirking. 

“Self-aware, are you?” He asked.

Deadpool lifted and dropped his shoulders. 

Peter turned his head back to face forward. 

“So why are you here?” Deadpool asked. 

Peter frowned. Deadpool couldn’t see it from their positions. 

“I don’t know...” Peter said. “I thought it went pretty well. I mean...I don’t-- _ didn’t _ \--mind working with you...though I’m not exactly renowned for my wisdom among my peers,” Peter scoffed, keeping his voice humorous. 

“Wisdom is for the  _ wise _ ,” Deadpool said, saying “ _ wise _ ” like it was some sort of taboo STD. 

Peter snorted, “yeah? And what am I?” he asked, looking back at Deadpool again. 

“Well you are sitting next to  _ me _ , Webs.” He grinned wolfishly again. 

Peter remembered what Deadpool said a few minutes ago.  _ “You can always tell the runners from the dumbasses.” _

Looking back at Wade, Peter felt like a dumbass. 

The sun was getting lower in the sky behind Deadpool. Getting to that point of annoyingly glaring and bright, and Peter’s eyes widened. 

“Oh holy  _ fuck _ , what time is it?!” 

He was gonna be late to his  _ fucking  _ Calc II class.

 

**The Thing About The Cute Boy in Calculus II**

 

The thing about the cute boy in Calculus II is that he looks at me with this bright, toothy grin that makes me think maybe I’m  _ his  _ cute boy in Calculus II as well as vise versa. He sits next to me a lot, we talk, we text about class. He’s let me borrow his notes an occasion or two when I couldn’t make it to class. 

The cute boy in Calculus II wears green and white vans, and has enamel pins on his jacket. One of which, a bi pride flag. I’ve commented on it before, and he smiled, touched the pin, and winked. I got flustered, managed a grin, and that was basically the end of that interaction. 

The cute boy in Calculus II is smart. I knew from the notes he took for me. The way he spoke. Argued whenever we ended up in the same half-circle of students debating something to do with something I was probably holding my tongue on so that I didn’t accidentally give away too much about my unique perspective on politics, crime, mutants, and superheroes. 

The cute boy in Calculus II was fiery passionate in that hot, mesmerizing way. I’d never heard the boy stutter. Always completely sure and comfortable in himself. 

The cute boy in Calculus II texted me, randomly, right out of the blue, and not about Calculus II. 

_ Do you wanna get dinner?  _

Did I want to get dinner. 

Did I want to get dinner? 

DID I WANT TO GET DINNER??!??!?@?!??!?@?$)$*&&*$^@&!UIJJD

Well, did? I had been calling him “ _ The Cute Boy in Calculus II”  _ for as long as I had known him. That was an indication of something, right? And here he was. Asking me if I  _ wanted to get dinner _ . Like a fucking asshole. Who does that? 

Because, how the hell am I supposed to know? 

Okay. There were pros and cons to consider here. Options. Consequences. Lists to be made. Diagrams and flowcharts and algorithms. 

PROS: 

As has already been iterated  _ several  _ times, he’s cute. 

He’s funny. Our senses of humor go together well. 

He’s smart. 

If everything went well, this “ _ dinner _ ” might turn out to be a first date. A first date that could lead to more. That could lead to The “B” Word. 

The “B” Word could lead to...well, boyfriend things. A best friend, a partner, someone to come home to. Cuddle up on the couch with. Give sloppy car blowjobs to.  _ Receive  _ sloppy car blowjobs from. A person to go grab food with, just ‘cause. Make fun of trashy movies with.  _ To have and to hold _ . 

CONS: 

I’m Spiderman. And he can’t know. And I’m already running around in frantic circles with school, and Avengers stuff, and everything else. Do I really have time? 

I’d have to lie to him about being Spiderman. 

I’d have to lie to him about a lot of things. 

If he ends up getting a job outside of New York after graduating, that would basically be it. I don’t want to do long distance. 

He might change his mind once we’re at the actual dinner. 

He might turn out to be a jackass. 

We might get together, stay together, and when I eventually tell him that I’m Spiderman, he might reject me. Or be mad at me for lying. Or expose me. 

If we get together, and stay together, and I tell him I’m Spiderman, and he accepts it, and we continue to stay together, if a BadGuyTM finds out we’re together, they could use him against me. Hurt him. He doesn’t deserve that. 

And, oh yeah….as soon as I saw the text, I thought about Wade. 

 

And that was the uncomprehensive list of pros and cons. 

The thing about the cute boy in calculus II is that, if he’d asked me two weeks ago, I might’ve said  _ yes _ . 

 

Peter scrubbed his hand over his face in frustration, dropping his phone onto the pile of his clothes by the sink before jumping into the shower. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Leave me a comment letting me know what you thought!


	4. I Am A Fish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We are humanitarians, we are Objectivists, we are lovers.

There were a lot of reasons why all of  _ this _ was terrible. 

First of all: he knew nothing about Deadpool. Or Wade. Or  _ whatever _ . 

So why was he  _ thinking about him so goddamn much _ . 

Why did he like him? 

Peter ran his fingers through his tangled hair. 

He  _ didn’t _ , Peter reasoned. He was just...intrigued. Interested. Nothing wrong with that. 

Well...Peter supposed there probably  _ was  _ something wrong with that, but...

It was a most confusing time. 

Peter’s leg knee shook up and down, and he chewed his nails, not listening at all to what his Prof was saying. He’d probably regret that later. 

It was...not possible, right? Like, scientifically speaking, there was absolutely no way that attraction could form for Peter for Wade. Peter knew nothing  _ about  _ Wade. 

Well...that wasn’t true. He knew that he was Deadpool, he knew he liked tacos and pancakes, he knew what his sense of humor was like, and somehow, some  _ dumbass  _ part of him wanted to suggest that he wasn’t a bad person. 

Peter sighed. 

 

Things did not get better with the Avengers. 

If anything: things got worse. Everytime Peter was in the same  _ room _ with them now, he felt it like thumb tacks in his digestive track. It made him feel terrible. These were  _ good  _ people. Better people than he would ever be--the sole presence of Steve Rogers  _ alone  _ made certain of that. 

It felt like spitting in their faces. Like standing on a rickety chair in a burning building and declaring “ _ Ha, ha, I know better than you!” _ . 

Peter sat, sweaty and exhausted in a chair at a table with the others. Tony was standing, still partially in the Iron Man suit. CCTV camera footage of the streets where the fight they had just partaken in played on the monitor behind Tony. The damage, relatively, was not terrible. They managed to apprehend  _ Fraknarr the Boneless  _ before he could harm more than two civilians.  _ “Fraknarr”  _ or, “ _ Frank”  _ as they were named before the incident, was a science experiment gone wrong. The scientist responsible was an old, mostly insane man who had been hovelled away for years working on “ _ Frank” _ , trying to recreate his dead son from questionable and extremely reactive materials. Fraknarr grew life, scientience, and a homicidal impulse. They killed the scientist, and escaped to the city, relatively peaceful until something--they weren’t sure what--triggered them and they snapped. One civilian dead, two injured plus a cop. Peter, Tony, and Steve had gone out to stop him when police attempts proved absolutely useless. 

Fraknarr was now in a holding cell somewhere below them in the tower. 

Peter stared at the table top. 

“Good work today, guys,” Tony said, sitting down heavily with a drink. 

“What’s going to happen with them?” Steve asked, referencing Fraknarr. Peter looked up with interest. 

Tony shrugged, “I’m going down to run some tests in a bit. We’ll see.” 

Peter looked back down at the table top. 

“No real protocol for this, right?” Peter said, a bit derisively. 

Tony nodded, “pretty much. They’re not technically a mutant. They’re probably more of a bacteria.” 

Peter traced the smooth planes of the tabletop with his index finger. When he stood up, his ear rang a bit. He grabbed his mask off the table and left without comment. 

Outside the room, he paused. 

“JARVIS, where’s Fraknarr?” He asked. 

“Lab 4 on the twelfth floor, Spider-Man.” 

Peter nodded, and pulled on his mask. 

“Thanks.” 

 

No one else was in the lab. In the corner was a tall box of reinforced glass. The creature Fraknarr stood inside, quite still, arms hanging down limply by their sides. It was turned away with its back to the lab, staring at the wall. A rather creepy image. Peter slowly moved closer until he was standing a mere couple feet away. He didn’t really know if this was a good idea. But it wasn’t really a bad one, either. 

Fraknarr did not necessarily look like a human. They were biped. Around six feet tall. Long limbed. Their skin was almost that of a human’s, but, also, if you looked for longer than a glance, you saw the differences that set it apart. It was certainly a lot greyer. 

When Fraknarr turned around, it surprised Peter. He hadn’t known that Fraknarr was aware of his presence. 

Fraknarr’s facial features were a different thing altogether. Large eyes and eyelids without lashes, nose that hardly protruded and did not have a bridge (like a pug), and mouth that appeared puffy around slightly too large teeth and gums. Fraknarr’s hair was thin and wispy and grey. Light strands of it on the ground told Peter that it was falling out. 

They stared at each other for several seconds. 

“Are you here to kill me?” 

Peter blinked. Fraknarr’s voice was deep and raspy. Croaky. Like someone trying to speak through a coughing fit, or an arm barred across their throat. Their question surprised Peter. 

“No,” Peter said finally. 

Fraknarr remained silent. 

“I’m here to talk,” Peter said. 

Fraknarr turned back around to face the wall. A dismissal if Peter ever saw one. 

“Why did you kill him?” Peter asked. “The scientist. The one who made you,” Peter clarified. 

Fraknarr stood unnaturally still, Peter noticed. Their shoulders did not move with their breaths.

“He wanted me to be something I am not,” Fraknarr finally responded, head dropping low. There was a strange sort of sadness to his tone that Peter thought maybe he picked up more by spider-sense than his human ones. 

“His child?” Peter asked, keeping his voice low and even. 

Fraknarr said nothing for a long time. Finally, he raised his head. With the movement, another clumped strands of hair fell from Fraknarr’s scalp, and swayed down to the floor gently. 

“I am, in a way,” Fraknarr said. “In more than one way. He created me. He also made me partially out of what remained of his previous child. So, all things considered, I probably could have been what he wanted. But we both knew that I am not.” 

Peter waited patiently to see if Fraknarr would continue. When it became evident that they wouldn’t, Peter spoke again. 

“How long have you been alive?” 

Fraknarr was quiet. 

“I have no sense of time. No grasp of history or relativity to compare it to. Personally, I would describe it as having been a long time.” 

Before he really considered what he was doing, Peter sat down on the floor in front of the glass cage, and crossed his legs underneath him, resting his hands on his ankles. 

Fraknarr turned around. Blinked, then his gaze trailed down to where Peter was sitting on the floor. They seemed to process this change of position for a moment, and then continued. 

“Why do you call yourself Fraknarr?” Peter asked. 

“It was on a TV show.” 

Peter almost grinned at the response. Wondered at the maturity level of this person. From the way they had been talking before, Peter had been ready to wager that it was pretty high. Peter’s smile fell slowly. 

“So...why did you kill him?” 

Fraknarr blinked again, and turned around to face the wall. 

Touchy subject. 

“And the others,” Peter added, because why not. 

“You do not deserve to live.” 

Peter wondered who he meant. Humans as a whole?  _ Probably _ .  _ Especially if Fraknarr had access to a TV.  _

“What do you mean by ‘ _ you _ ’?” Peter asked anyway. 

“ _ All of you _ ,” Fraknarr said, and sounded like he was sneering. “With your  _ destruction _ , and  _ violence _ , and  _ gods. _ ”

Peter felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Goosebumps raising on his flesh. 

Fraknarr turned around quickly, and stared directly into Peter’s eyes. Those eyes that weren’t human. Peter wondered what colors Fraknarr could see. What images reflected off his retinas? What did they see when they looked at Peter’s mask? 

“I did not ask to be created,” Fraknarr said. “I am a fish.” 

Peter found the statement strange. Also, the way that Fraknarr’s tone softened and how they looked at the ground. Sad. Wistful. There was something more to it than just a sudden comparison. Peter wondered if the scientist hated his creation, and if he’d told them so. If when the scientist looked at them, all they saw was a base, carnal, fun-house mirror of an attempted resurrection.  _ “Compared to my son, you are a fish.”  _

Peter was staring at the ground, but when he heard a faint “ _ tink”  _ he looked up. One of Fraknarr’s teeth had fallen out. Peter eyes trailed down to the floor of the glass cage. A bloodied, jagged tooth lay on the ground. Peter frowned.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asked, looking up at Fraknarr again.

Fraknarr stared at him a moment longer, and turned around to face the wall again. Peter stood up. 

“Do you deserve to die?” Peter asked. 

“I am not alive,” Fraknarr the Boneless responded. 

 

Fraknarr did die, or, “ _ cease”  _ might be a better term, less than an hour later. A bit of digging around both the body and the lab where Fraknarr and the scientist resided told them why. Fraknarr couldn’t survive for very long with a dose of the serum the scientist had created. Fraknarr knew they were going to die. 

“This has been an... _ extremely  _ weird day,” Steve said tiredly, standing on the other side of the autopsy table. Bruce had conducted the examination with Steve, Tony, and Peter standing around him, watching. Fraknarr’s body was slowly disintigrating. 

“Eh, just another Thursday for us, right?” Tony snorted. 

Bruce put a sheet over Fraknarr’s corpse. 

“We should probably burn it,” Bruce said. 

“Okay,” Tony responded. 

 

A google search later, Peter found out that  _ ‘Fraknarr the Boneless’  _ was a cartoon fish who wore a viking helmet and attempted increasingly wacky forms of suicide every episode, but was never killed because of his  _ boneless _ (as well as everything else-less as the fish was actually a figment of the main character’s imagination) nature. 

 

As long as Peter was an Avenger, he knew who he was. What he stood for, and why he did. Tony Stark walked into his life when he was fifteen, gave him a new suit and something to believe in, and that was that. He spent the next year convincing them to let him become Part Of The Team, and then the next three being a bonafide  _ Avenger _ . 

He would forever be thankful to them. To Tony, and Steve, and Natasha, and Bruce, and Clint. They shaped him as a hero. Made him who he was. Even if in the end, they didn’t necessarily prefer it. 

Peter could have been an Avenger. He  _ almost _ was what they wanted. He was Almost Frank. 

“JARVIS?” Peter asked the air.

“Yes, Spider-Man?” 

“The Avengers don’t happen to keep loose tabs on Deadpool, do they?” 

“There is an address under file.” 

Peter almost snorted.  _ That’s convenient.  _ He scrubbed a hand over his face tiredly. 

“Would you like the address?” 

 

The apartment was exactly what Peter expected. He climbed the porch steps, and knocked on the door, wondering if Deadpool was even home. 

Peter waited a bit, then knocked again. 

_ Thirty more seconds, and then I’ll leave _ . 

Peter started counting in his head. He entirely did not expect it when the door swung open, and he was faced with Deadpool, wearing striped sweatpants and a red bathrobe, mask pulled over his head, holding a handgun and pointing it at him. 

Peter raised his hands in surrender. 

They stood on either side of the doorframe, staring at each other for several long seconds. Neither of them spoke. 

“....Spidey?” Deadpool asked finally. 

Peter nodded his head towards the gun. 

“Gonna shoot me?” 

Deadpool, too, looked at the gun in his hand, and threw it over his shoulder absently back into his apartment. Peter winced, thankful that the weapon didn’t go off when it clattered on the floor. 

“To what do I owe the pleasure?!” Deadpool exclaimed, throwing his arms up in a display of excitement and welcoming. 

Peter lowered his arms. 

“The Avengers’ extensive data cache.” Peter said. 

Deadpool laughed for several seconds too long. 

“ _ Ahh... _ but really, Spides, why are you here? Need aide in another superhero endeavor? Hire me for my hitman services? Prostitute services? I charge by the half hour, you know. For the hitman services, not the other thing. The  _ other  _ thing I’ll do for free. Friends and family discount.” 

Peter blinked. 

“I’m depressed. Let’s get food.” 

From Deadpool’s body language, he was not expecting that answer. 

 

Deadpool had slammed the door in his face with a “ _ One sec”  _ gesture, and come back less than five minutes later with his full suit on. Peter had no idea how he’d managed to crawl into it so quickly. After that, Deadpool’d taken out his phone and called an Uber, which they’d stood on the curb and waited for for several minutes. Deadpool kicked at the curb, and dirt, and whistled occasionally to himself, fidgeting and acting like he was trying very hard to remain silent. Peter didn’t know why he was. 

When the Uber got there, they got in, and Peter directed him to Wendy’s because he was craving those chicken nuggets and a frosty. They went inside and ordered from a cashier who stared at them for a long time, and then left with their bags of food and a cup carrier with two large frostys. Then, Peter webbed them up to the roof of a tall building. 

He removed his arm from Deadpool’s waist when their feet touched the rooftop. Deadpool carefully set all the food he’d been holding on the ground. They settled on the edge of the building, and started unpackaging their respective meals. 

“Why are you depressed, Spidey?” Deadpool finally asked, rolling his mask up to his nose and holding a half-unwrapped burger. He sat with his legs crossed underneath him on the roof’s ledge. Peter sat next to him with his own legs dangling. He ate a chicken nugget before answering.

“Just one of those days…” He responded vaguely, which wasn’t really the truth. 

“Ah. Lapse of judgement days,” Deadpool said through a large bite of his sandwich, nodding his head. 

Peter shrugged, “maybe. I don’t know. Lots of...stuff I’m considering.” 

“ _ Stuff? _ ” Deadpool asked, and swallowed “what kind of stuff? Brood-y, superhero stuff? Do you have a monologue prepared?” 

“Yes,” Peter deadpanned, and ate another chicken nugget. 

Deadpool took another bite of his sandwich. 

“Go on,” he prodded. 

Peter grinned slightly, and found himself staring at Deadpool. He looked down at his lap again when he realized he was. 

“Just looking for a little clarity.” 

Deadpool swallowed again, and made a weird scoff/laugh sound in his throat. 

“And you came  _ here  _ for it?” Deadpool asked, gesturing to himself. 

Peter shrugged again, “Just wanted to hang out.” 

Deadpool paused. His gaze slowly moved away. 

“... _ ’Hang out’ _ . S’funny ‘cause you’re a spider.” 

Peter rolled his eyes. 

“Yes, the pun possibilities are endless.” 

Deadpool grinned toothily. 

“I find it hard to believe you don’t have any other friends to hang out with, Spides. Uptown girl like you,” Deadpool said. 

Peter sipped his frosty. 

“Believe it,” Peter said, “don’t have too many friends, actually.” 

“You’re a busy bee?...Bug?” 

Peter nodded. 

“Always hustlin’,” he replied. 

Deadpool nodded. 

“Can relate. Not to the hustlin’ part, but to the no friends part.” 

“What am I? Sliced bread?” 

“I have no idea what you are.” 

The statement, Peter thought, was more telling than he thought Deadpool intended. 

“Yeah, me neither…” Peter trailed, turning to look off into the mess of buildings and lights and noises in front of him. 

“Ah, so  _ that’s  _ why you’re here! Existential crisis?” Deadpool asked, nudging Peter with his elbow conspiratorial. 

“I am a fish,” Peter replied, knowing Deadpool wouldn’t get the reference. 

“And I am a freight ship,” Deadpool responded easily, anyway. 

“Are you?” Peter asked. 

Deadpool nodded, “most definitely.” 

“How so?” 

“Lotsa cargo.” 

Peter wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, or if it was supposed to mean anything at all. 

“Okay,” Peter said. 

“What kinda fish are you?” Deadpool asked. 

“Lion,” Peter responded without much deliberation. 

“To who?” 

Peter frowned, then snorted. 

“Myself.” 

Deadpool mused on this with a hum. 

“‘Bout what?” 

Peter picked at the edge of his nugget container. 

“I think a lot of things…” he trailed off. 

What the fuck was it about this accused raving lunatic beside him that made him totally willing to talk about absolutely  _ whatever  _ without a care in the goddamn world? 

“Have you found God?” Deadpool asked. 

“Lost him, I think.” 

Deadpool “ _ ooh”’ed _ . 

“Touchy subject? Repressed Catholic childhood?” 

Peter shook his head, “I’m Jewish.” 

“I’m Canadian.” 

“Good to know?” 

“I mean, probably. Can’t be that bad if I come from  _ Canada _ , now, can I?” 

Peter snorted, “guess not. I don’t think you’re that bad anyway.” 

“Aw, yeah, well, you haven’t seen my basement yet.” 

“Meat lockers full of body parts or secret sex dungeon?” 

“What’s the difference?”

Peter broke, and laughed. When he looked over, Wade was grinning. 

“That’s terrible,” Peter said. “I thought you said you were Canadian?” 

“Stereotyping is bad, Spides. People of  _ all  _ nationalities can be serial killers, you know.” 

“Oh, yeah, I apologise for my offensive box drawing.” 

“You can make it up to me by visiting my secret meat locket body part sex dungeon.” 

Peter laughed again. 

“Sounds fair,” he said. 

They lapsed into chewing-filled-silence for a few moments. 

“Saw you on the news today,” Deadpool said. 

Peter raised an eyebrow. 

“You watch the news?” 

“It was on in Walgreens.” 

Peter’s eyebrow raising intensified. 

“You got to Walgreens?” 

“We all get yeast infections, okay?” 

Peter chortled, but said nothing. 

“What was up with weird golem guy?” Deadpool asked. 

Peter breathed in deeply. 

“It’s a medium length depressing story.” 

Deadpool laughed. 

Peter looked over at him. Deadpool quieted. 

“I thought you said ‘ _ medium-rare _ ’ depressing story,” he said. 

The corner of Peter’s mouth lifted, then fell slowly.

“None of it probably had to happen. A few people could still be alive right now if it didn’t.” 

“I mean, you can say that about literally every death-causing event ever, but go on, I guess.” 

“It was all just so...purposeless. One person’s kid dies, and it ends up in three deaths and a handful of serious injuries.” 

Deadpool said nothing. Peter dipped a fry into his frosty and ate it. 

“I’m not super good at philosophical conversations,” Deadpool said. 

“And yet you’ve read  _ The Fountainhead _ ,” Peter replied. 

Deadpool shrugged. 

“Eleventh grade reading.” 

“I’m deeply surprised to hear that you actually  _ did  _ any reading in eleventh grade.” 

Deadpool popped the lid off his frosty and gestured with it. 

“I’m full of surprises,” he said, and began to chug the chocolate frosty. 

Peter stared at him. 

“...Don’t you get a brain freeze doing that?” 

Deadpool lowered the now half empty cup, and swallowed thickly. 

“Yep,” he said. 

Peter just smiled a bit at him in disbelief. 

“Masochist?” 

Deadpool clicked his tongue and ticked his head to the side. 

“ _ ‘Masochist’  _ implies enjoyment.” Deadpool started chugging the frosty again. 

Just how many of Deadpool’s behaviors were versions of self-harm? 

“Why do you do what you do?” Peter asked. 

Deadpool finished off the frosty, and swallowed with finalty, wiping his mouth with his arm. He looked over at Peter. 

“What, chug frostys?” 

“No, like...why are you Deadpool?” 

Deadpool looked down at the ground far below them. He dropped his empty frosty cup, and they both watched it hit the ground and bounce a couple times, clattering off into the road. Peter would probably go and pick it up later. 

“Well, there started off being a reason...after that, it just became the whole  _ ‘if you’re good at something, never do it for free’  _ shtick.” 

Peter nodded. That answer made sense. And, if he wasn’t willing to disclose what the initial reason was, Peter wasn’t going to push. 

“And, as long as we’re on the topic, why are you Spiderman?” Deadpool asked. 

“I was bit by a radioactive spider.” 

Deadpool turned and regarded him. 

“Wait, really? Fucking  _ cool _ , dude!” 

Peter grinned a bit. 

“So you weren’t born a mutant?” Deadpool continued. 

Peter shook his head, “no.” 

Deadpool smiled at him, “me neither! Man, we really have so much in common. I think we might be soul-sisters, webs.” 

“Sounds legit,” Peter said. 

Deadpool nodded, “so, that’s why? Some People Have Greatness Thrust Upon Them? Are you Harry Potter?” 

Peter smiled, “yeah, totally.” 

Deadpool mused, as though it was all coming together and made perfect since. 

“But in all actuality...I don’t know. I had these new powers, and kinda just realized that I could do something with them...help people. Then Iron Man contacted me and...the rest is history.” 

“A humanitarian.” 

Peter snorted, “I guess...lemme guess... _ Can’t relate _ ?” 

Deadpool shrugged. 

“I don’t do labels.” 

“Oh, of course.”

Their food was long gone. They were just sitting now. The sun was getting low in the sky. It was hard for Peter to believe that it was still the same day as the ordeal with Fraknarr. That three people had died today. Countless lives changed from that occurrence, and, despite his very close hand in the whole situation, Peter’s hardly was. 

Peter wished he didn’t have to put so much weight on his life. Wished he could just float. Wished he didn’t have to think about all these things, and have to measure so carefully where he was on the moral compass. He wished it all came easy to him. Wished he could grasp at one straw and stick to it. Be as conscious about his beliefs as the 1950s black and white of Steve Rogers. Wished at least he could have enough confidence in himself and enough impatience to be Tony Stark. Wished at least to have the forward drive and compartmentalizing ability of Natasha Romanoff. Thor was a fucking god. Peter could only ride off their coattails for so long. 

Everything was too much. What happened to third grade and the Golden Rule? Ten Commandments? I Pledge Allegiance To The Flag. 

Peter was not an Objectivist. What was he? Fucked, probably. 

 

Peter’s never felt more...present than when he’s with Deadpool. It’s like the whole world just...exists so much more tangibly. No hypotheticals, no wonderings about the future, no internal conflict over the past. God, that sounded so fucking deep or whatever. It wasn’t really like that. That’s all just a bullshit of saying everything just felt easier when he was with Deadpool. 

Probably because the man had no moral compass, Peter reasoned No sense of consequence. And so that bled over to everyone else he was with. 

That’s why he was so attractive, Peter thought. Who doesn’t love being around someone who doesn’t make them feel guilty? 

The question: was that a good, or bad thing? 

 

Aunt May made him dinner when he went over on Friday night and he pretended he was fourteen again, sitting at the kitchen table across from her. 

“Life’s hard,” he said. 

Aunt May laughed, “yep.” 

“How do I do it?” 

Aunt May shrugged, “You’re doing a pretty good job.” 

“I don’t feel like I am.” 

“What’s wrong?” 

“I feel like I’m doing something wrong.” 

“How so?” 

Peter paused, staring at the table, holding his fork as though he’d forgotten about it. He considered what all he was willing to disclose to her. Might as well go in, right? Balls to the wall. 

“I don’t know if I want to be an Avenger anymore.” 

Aunt May was only silent for a second or so. 

“Did something happen?” 

“Nothing in particular, but, just...I don’t know. I don’t know where I’m standing, you know? If my feet are even on the ground.” He looked up at her. 

Aunt May nodded, listening intently to him. 

“I can understand that, Peter, trust me on that one...sometimes...the only one you can rely on to tell you what direction to go is yourself,” she paused, and looked him in the eye, “what your instincts are telling you.” 

Peter looked back at her expectantly. 

“Losing your parents was hard, Peter. Raising you was hard. Losing Ben was hard…” Aunt May paused. Peter looked down again. “And...everytime... _ all  _ the time, really,” she smiled a bit, “I just...had to keep on, you know? Keep doing what I thought was the best action I could take. What I thought was right. What I thought was kind. And I tried my hardest to show you that, too.” 

“You did,” Peter said softly. 

Aunt May smiled again. 

“I’m glad,” she said. “I know you Peter. There’s not a bad bone in your body, kid. You’re so damn good, I don’t really know how it happened” 

Peter smiled down at the table.

“If you don’t want to be an Avenger anymore, Peter, or you feel like you shouldn’t or can’t be for some reason...I would encourage you to think about it. And know that if you  _ want  _ to, you  _ can _ , but you don’t  _ have _ to for whatever reason, but also to help people. You can be your own hero. 

Peter looked up at her. 

“Thanks, May,” he said softly. 

“Hey, always,” she replied, “I’m Team Peter."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Moment for Aunt May appreciation 
> 
> Objectivism is the philosophy of rational individuality, developed by Ayn Rand. 
> 
> Hope you liked this chapter! Kudos or comment to let me know!


	5. In ______ We Trust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Trigger Warnings: Mentions of sexual assault and prostitution.

It was actually  _ most of the time  _ that Peter’s job as Spiderman took him to seedier parts of the city. Not that it was hard to come by seedier parts of the city, but, you know, you get the idea of what I’m trying to convey. 

Peter was in a seedier part of the city, and this was not unusual. 

He was standing across the street, supervising the arrest of a would-be house robber. He’d caught the dude trying to break into the window of a ground floor apartment, webbed him, and called the police. Now, he watched as an officer tucked the  _ still  _ cursing dude into the back of a police car. 

Peter was just walking away, going to find a better point to swing himself up onto a building at, when he almost had a fucking heart attack. 

Someone grabbed his arm and yanked him back into a covered doors, pulling him towards the wall so they they were in an alcove of sorts. 

_ What the fuck do I even have spidey-sense FOR!?  _

Then Peter saw who had yanked him aside, and it made sense. The woman in front of him could hardly be considered a threat. Short, wearing a tanktop and ripped jeans, hair pulled back into a messy ponytail, covered in bruises and looking like she hadn’t slept in the last few  _ months _ . 

Peter stared at her, eyebrows raised. She was still holding his arm. She couldn’t see his confused expression through his mask, but she wasn’t really looking at him anyway. Her gaze shifted nervously. 

“You’re Spiderman?” She asked, which Peter thought was a bit obvious, based on the suit, but he nodded anyway. 

“Yes...Are you okay?” He asked, finally relaxing slightly, and raising his hands to the woman’s upper arms. They were quite close, squished together by the limited space in the alcove next to the door. 

She shrugged out of his grip, and he lowered his arms to his sides. The woman crossed her arms over her chest. 

“You...uh...you help people? With...things?” 

Peter was still... _ exceedingly  _ confused, but he nodded slowly anyway. 

“Yes,” he said, “...do you need help?” 

She certainly looked like she needed help. 

She huffed an amused, sardonic breath, “not me. I wouldn’t go running to one of you for me, you know? No offense,” she added, glancing furtively towards Peter. 

Peter didn’t take any. 

The woman reached into her backpocket, and pulled out a smartphone. She held it out to Peter, and he took it, cautiously. 

“It’s my friend…” she said, quietly. 

Peter looked down at the phone, then back up. The woman was staring at him fiercely now, and Peter was surprised. 

“She don’t deserve it. I told her...I told her I’d keep her safe.” 

Peter felt his heart soften substantially. 

“...It’s all on the phone,” she continued after a second’s pause, “The guy...Ed Bulford. He’ll kill me when he finds out I been talkin’ to someone.” 

Peter’s head jerked up. 

“What? What do you mean? Who’s Ed Bulford?” 

The woman looked away, teeth digging into her lip. She fumbled in her pocket again and pulled

Out a cigarette and a lighter. 

“A fuckin’ bastard,” she muttered, but looked around as though she were expecting someone to jump out with a gun and shoot her dead. 

There were people walking up and down the street just a few feet away. If they stood in just the right spot and turned their heads to the right ankle, they’d be able to see her and Peter. 

Smoke filled the alcove with her exhale, and Peter tried not to breathe too deeply. He stared at the woman, concerned, still every bit confused he was two minutes ago. 

“Slow down,” Peter said, lifting his hands, one of them still holding the phone. “...What’s your name?”

She turned, and gave Peter a funny look. 

“Leli,” she said...

Peter gestured with his hand holding the phone. 

“What is this?” 

“Evidence,” Leli said, as though it were obvious. “Of what that shithead does to us.” 

Peter’s brow furrowed. 

“What do you mean? Surely you can take this to the police?” 

Leli snorted derisively, “yeah, right...I ain’t goin’ to the fuckin’ police,” she said, she sucked smoke from her cigarette once more, “look, just watch the video, okay? That way you  _ know _ , and you can fuckin’  _ do  _ something about it, because...because I don’t know what else to do. The cops  _ listen  _ to you superheroes. You can make him go away.” 

“Okay,” Peter acquiesced. 

Leli scrubbed a frustrated hand over her hair. She glanced towards the doorway. It was starting to rain. 

“ _ Shit _ , I gotta go…” Leli trailed. 

Peter raised a hand to her shoulder, unwilling to just let the woman run off like that. 

“Hey, wait, you just told me this guy--Ed Bulford--might be after you--” 

“I can’t leave Jaz alone!” Leli interrupted, her voice cutting high at the end, jerked away from Peter’s hand on her shoulder. 

Peter retreated. 

“Look, we can figure something out. I’m  _ going  _ to help you, I can help you right now, I don’t--” 

“No, listen!” Leli exclaimed, and a high note strung somewhere in Peter’s gut and he thought maybe Leli  _ could  _ be a threat, if she tried. But no, she was just desperate. And Peter was  _ trying  _ to listen. She glanced towards the opening of the doorway once more. 

“Fuck-- _ fuck _ , I gotta go, I’ve already been gone too long,” she said, and turned back to Peter, “watch the damn video. There’s an address in the notes, I…” she stopped talking again. It looked like it was paining her to talk. Peter thought she looked guilty and miserable. “I’m crazy...for doin’ this, you know. I’m fuckin’ crazy to be trusting you,  _ god _ .” 

“Leli--” Peter tried, but she was ducking out of the alcove. 

“ _ Don’t  _ follow me,” she hissed over her shoulder. 

Peter watched her hurry down the street, hands shoved into her pockets, shoulders hunched, hair falling into her face. 

Peter leaned back into the alcove, away from prying eyes, and looked down at the phone in his hands. 

 

The background of the phone was a stock photo, probably came on the phone. 

A few apps were installed.  _ Facebook, Snapchat, Spotify _ . Peter went into the notes, and there were a couple, but the top one was an address, just like Leli said. 

Next, he went into the photos app, and, the very first thing, just like Leli said, was a video. 

The screencap of the video was not promising. It was of the floor, Peter thought. Dim lighting. 

There were more pictures on the phone. Peter recognized Leli in them. There were also a lot that had another girl in them. She looked younger than Leli. Peter thought maybe it was “ _ Jaz” _ . 

Peter was nervous to tap on the video. He didn’t know if he wanted to watch it. 

He tapped it anyway, and turned the phone on its side. The video went full screen. He turned up the volume until he could hear it. 

And then he felt his stomach plummet.

 

Peter stood in that alcove for a long time. 

He only watched the video once. He didn’t need to watch it again. Nobody ever needed to watch that video twice,  _ Christ _ …

Peter wasn’t, generally, inclined to violence. 

He was a superhero. And he could fight, yes, for all intents and purposes he was a  _ fighter _ . And he fought. He kicked ass. 

But there were only a few times in his life that he ever, with premeditated intent, wanted to rip someone’s throat out.  

Peter assumed the girl in the video was Jaz. And she was very clearly being assaulted. Violently. 

The camera was shaking. The view was slightly obstructed. Leli was hiding behind something and filming, breathing unevenly. The video was a minute and thirteen seconds long before there was a noise seeming to come from behind Leli, the recorder, and the camera was quickly put down. A quiet curse. Jaz still sobbing. Video ended. 

Peter was shaking too. 

 

**Four City Blocks Away**

The bar had a reputation for being the one that all the particularly shady dudes hung out at. You could get pretty much anything done by someone in that bar, if you knew who to ask and how to go about it. Usually, ‘ _ how to go about it’,  _ was a lot of money. 

The girl wasn’t exactly conspicuous in the bar, with her hoodie pulled up over her head, but she got a few off glances. She wasn’t working, and she wasn’t drinking. She was just sitting in a booth, looking like she was waiting. 

“Hey, are you going to buy something?” The bartender asked her, walking over to her booth. She glared up at him but pulled out a ten dollar bill. She handed it over. He took it from her and came back with a beer. It remained unopened on her table. 

The door opened. Someone else had come in, and, as she had been doing for the last hour, she glanced up to see who it was. 

Wasn’t hard to immediately know. He was dressed like a red and black panda and had swords strapped to his back for fuck’s sake. Her eyes tracked him as he sauntered (reminiscent of an old cowboy movie, she thought) across the room and to the bar. He leaned across it, and called something loud and obnoxious to the bartender, who snorted at him and started making a drink. 

She watched him as he sat down at the bar, kicking back. He looked up at the box TV above the bar, and groaned at the current state of the hockey game that was going on. 

The bartender came back with his drink, and set it in front of him. 

“Thanks, Z!” He said loudly, “now, what’s  _ her _ baggage?” 

Jaz almost choked as Deadpool jut a thumb over his shoulder in her direction without looking, still leaned back, as casual as anything, posing the chipper question to the bartender, who looked right at her. 

Her eyes were wide. She was frozen in shock. 

The bartender shrugged. 

“Dunno. Been here a while.” 

Deadpool slammed his feet back on the floor, and twisted in his chair to look at her. 

“See something you like?” He asked in a friendly tone. 

Jaz swallowed, then, after a second, stood up. 

No way she was going to lose her nerve now. 

She crossed the bar, and sat down next to him. 

No one else was paying attention to their interaction. 

Deadpool leaned one elbow on the table, and clasped his hands together, body turned in his seat to face her. He was wearing a mask, but for some reason she felt like he had a serene expression on his face. 

“Who are you?” He asked 

Jaz took a deep breath, and it made her chest hurt and rattle. 

“‘S not important. You--they call you the  _ Merc _ , right?’ She asked, tilting her head down slightly, getting right to business. 

“Yup,” Deadpool replied. He’d so far completely ignored his drink, currently sitting lonely by his elbow. 

“You do things for people?” 

“And they tend to be illegal, yes,” Deadpool said, unclasping his hands and waving one in a  _ ‘get on with it’  _ motion. 

Jaz narrowed her eyes at him, but she felt fear trickle up her spine. 

“How much...how much would it cost to...if I wanted to kill someone?” 

It might’ve been a good moment for a record scratch, but Deadpool didn’t act like it. Instead, he clasped his hands together again. 

“That depends,” Deadpool said, and leaned forward conspiratorially, “ _ What’d they do _ ?” 

 

**_An Hour Or So Later_ **

 

Peter thought about contacting the Avengers, he really did. He thought about it for a long time, and in the back of his head, he was still kind of thinking about it. 

But...it wasn’t like they could do anything he couldn’t do. It wasn’t like they’d tell him to do anything different. He had a plan, and the plan was standard. 

Go in, tie Bulford up, leave him outside on the sidewalk with the phone webbed to him, and call the police. 

Actually, he desperately wanted to see if he could find any more evidence that he could leave with Bulford, at least enough to warrant a search warrant. That way the video wouldn’t have to be shown in court, and the poor girl, Jaz, wouldn’t have to go through that. 

He also needed to know if Leli was going to testify. He thought she would. Seemed like she’d do anything for her friend, even if she wasn’t willing to do it for herself. And because of her, other girls would, too. Peter hoped so, at least. 

Peter had been feeling sick for the past hour. It all churned harder in his stomach when he actually made it to the address Leli had given him. 

Peter had webbed himself there, and now stood on top of the building. He climbed down the fire escape to the proper apartment’s window, and listened to hear if anyone was inside. He didn’t hear anything, so he pulled open the unlocked window easily and slipped in silently. 

All the lights were off in the apartment, but the light from the window made it easily bright enough to see. It smelled, frankly, terrible, and it was a mess. 

Peter recognized the hallway from the beginning of Leli’s video. His stomach flipped again as he thought about it. He looked around. On the floor in front of the couch were a lot of bottles. The faucet in the kitchen was dripping. He moved towards the kitchen, where it was darker due to lack of windows. With a jolt, Peter realized that there  _ was  _ someone in the apartment. 

Of course, he realized this a second before an arm shot out and caught him around the shoulders, spinning him around and throwing him against the wall. 

Peter dove out of the way, pushing off the wall, and darting past whoever it was without looking. He spun around on his heel to face them, bringing his hands up for a fight--

“Spidey?” 

Peter stopped, and processed who was standing in front of him. 

“ _ Deadpool?!”  _ Peter exclaimed, throwing his arms up. 

Deadpool’s body language was just as shocked as Peter’s. 

“What are  _ you _ doin’ here, baby boy?” Deadpool asked confusedly. 

“Right back at you, buckaroo!” Peter retorted, heart still pounding from the surprise attack. 

Deadpool rubbed the back of his neck. 

“Sorry about the whole wall thing,” he said, chittering nervously. 

Peter rolled his eyes. 

“Seriously, what are you doing here?” Peter asked, keeping his voice low. 

Deadpool glanced around. 

“I’m here for a job.” 

Peter narrowed his eyes. He didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but he also knew that Deadpool was notorious for working in shadier circles. He felt his heart rate picking up again as he considered the implications of Deadpool being here. 

“What kind of job?” Peter asked, and thought that maybe panic seeped slightly into his voice. 

But then he heard the turn of a key in the lock of the door not ten feet away from them, and they both dove into the pantry and pulled it shut before the front door could even be opened. 

And Peter found himself yet against squished up against Deadpool in close quarters. 

Peter very absolutely rolled his eyes. 

They heard whoever it was walk into the apartment, and, thankfully, bypass the kitchen. They putzed about the living room, then Peter tracked their footsteps down the hall. He heard a door open and shut. He released a breath. 

“ _ Fuck _ ,” he swore quietly. No matter how many times he’d done it, no matter how much stronger he was than normal humans, it was always terrifying to stand in a closet with a potential threat just inches away, completely unawares. 

“ _ So what are you doing here?”  _ Deadpool asked, and thankfully had the grace to whisper quietly. 

Peter looked up at him. They were chest to chest. 

“ _ I’m here for Bulford _ ,” Peter said, and felt a coating of disgust around his tongue at the name. 

“ _ Same here,”  _ Deadpool said. 

For some reason, Deadpool’s mood seemed different than Peter had seen before. Like before, in the  _ Khaos  _ building when they’d found the frantic hostage.  _ Deadpool-Means-Business  _ mode. 

“ _ What do you mean?”  _ Peter whispered back, fervent. 

“ _ I’m here to kill Bulford.”  _

Peter grit his teeth, looked away, and a little part of him said  _ thank god.  _

The door down the hall open and shut again. Another door. A shower squealed on. 

Peter glanced at Deadpool again, and then they exited the pantry. 

Deadpool unholstered a handgun. 

“Deadpool,” Peter stopped him, still keeping his voice low. Deadpool turned to him. He was going to kill Ed Bulford in the shower. And Peter didn’t know how to feel about that. “...We can’t kill him,” he said, uncertain. 

He got the distinct impression that Deadpool was raising an eyebrow. 

“We’re not. I am.” 

Peter clenched his fists at his sides. 

“Let’s just take him in. I have enough evidence. He’ll go away.” 

Deadpool paused. 

“Leave, Spides,” Deadpool said quietly. Kindly. 

Peter wanted to. He wanted to turn around, walk out, and swing himself far away. Pretend like he never came. Let Deadpool make him go away the, well... _ Deadpool  _ way. 

But Peter knew himself enough to know he couldn’t do that. 

He took a breath. He didn’t have a lot of time. Bulford might be a fast showerer. 

Peter wanted to argue. He wanted to keep talking until they ran out of time. He wanted to go back and forth so that he didn’t have to make a choice. He was about to open his mouth. Say something like “ _ It’s not up to us to decide his justice”  _ or “ _ I’m not a killer” _ . But Deadpool opened his mouth first. 

“I made a promise to a girl, and I’m not going to break it. You can’t change my mind on this one, Spidey.” 

_ A girl?  _ At first, Peter thought of Leli. Did she go hire an assassin directly after talking to him? 

It sent a cold feeling down Peter’s spine to think of Deadpool as an assassin. 

Peter had nothing to say. 

Peter thought about the girl. About Jaz. He felt, for the millionth time, like throwing up. Like crying himself. He had cried a bit, in the alcove. That girl  _ exists _ . And she, and Leli, and other girls--because Leli  _ said  _ there were other girls--had all been hurt at Bulford’s expense.

Peter was supposed to be  _ good  _ at this, damnit, he was supposed to know what to do.  _ Tony  _ would know what to do,  _ Steve  _ would know what to do, and in every cartoon version of this day it would end with Ed Bulford getting slammed into the back of a police car to be never heard of again but it wasn’t as simple as that because there were a million “ _ what-if” _ s between the back of a police car and never hurting anyone again and too many of those “ _ what-if” _ ’s came true, and also, girls don’t get raped in cartoons.  

“Go on, Bug. Leave. Like you were never here.” 

Deadpool was giving him an out. It was kind of him.  _ ‘I won’t think less of you. It’ll never come up again.’   _ Peter wished he could look into Wade’s eyes. 

“But I am here.”

The shower turned off. They turned towards the hallway. 

Peter grabbed Deadpool, and hauled him towards the window. 

“What the  _ fuck-- _ ” 

“ _ Time out _ ,” Peter muttered. They scrambled through the window and onto the fire escape. Peter slung an arm around Wade’s waist, and shot a web at the roof of the building adjacent to Bulford’s apartment. He yanked them up, swinging them onto the roof and landing them on their feet with ease. 

“You can’t just go around  _ hijacking  _ people, Spides!” Deadpool exclaimed, stomping his foot. 

Peter turned away and paced a few steps. He wanted to tug his fingers through his hair, but he was wearing his mask, so instead he clenched and unclenched his fists, then turned around again. 

“You can’t kill him.” 

“Uhh…” Deadpool said, looking down obviously to the gun still in his hand, “I’m pretty sure I  _ can _ .” 

Peter swallowed. 

“No, look, I...he deserves to be put away. Forever. But we can’t just decide that--” 

“What about the girls he hurt? Do  _ they  _ get a fucking choice?!” 

Peter stopped, and turned away again in a jerky motion. 

“I  _ promised _ ,” Deadpool reiterated, and Peter wanted to cry. Wanted to go back to Bulford’s apartment and beat the shit out of him. Wanted to find all the girls he’d hurt--the ones who didn’t know what they were getting into, and then couldn’t get out. 

“He was making a fucking  _ profit _ off vulnerable fucking  _ teenagers _ . Hurting them worse than…” Deadpool trailed off. Like he was biting his tongue. Peter turned to look at him, and watched with some interest as he rolled his shoulders, turned his head slightly, and then stood up straight. In his usual, casual-boardering-on-chipper tone, he said: 

“Now is not the time for a moral dilemma, Spidey.”

Peter almost chortled. He’d been in a perpetual moral dilemma for the last two weeks. 

“Was it Leli?” Peter asked, substanitally quieter than his previous tone. 

“Who the fuck is Leli?” 

“The girl who hired you.” 

“No. Jaz.” 

Peter closed his eyes. 

“I’ve said it before. I don’t need your permission.” 

“I know,” Peter responded. 

A few seconds passed. Peter wondered if Bulford might have been able to see them if he looked out his window and craned his head up. 

“Will you hate me?” 

Peter almost didn’t hear it. Wade’s voice was low and nervous. 

Peter turned to face him again. Wade’s arms were limp at his sides, in one hand still was the gun. Peter wondered how a giant masked man decked out in  _ copious  _ weaponry could appear vulnerable. 

“No,” Peter said. Because he wouldn’t. How could he? When he was struggling with the same thing. Wade was just more sure of it. Peter wasn’t sure, but it wasn’t up to him. 

After a few seconds, Wade moved. 

He went down to the edge of the building, and dropped down onto it’s fire escape. Peter heard him going down the steps until he was level with one level above Bulford’s apartment. Bulford’s apartment building’s fire escape was slightly to the left of this one’s, and so the distance was about fifteen/seventeen feet diagonally and downwards. Peter glanced over in time to see Wade push off the railing of this building’s fire escape, plummet down and across towards Bulford’s landing, and clang loudly onto it, rattling the structure, though making it as though the jump weren’t even  _ that  _ far. Peter’s heart jumped to his throat either way. 

Deadpool hurried through the window. There was no way Bulford hadn’t heard him jump onto his fire escape. Peter couldn’t tear his eyes away from the window even though he couldn’t see anything through it. A pause; gunshot. 

Peter flinched, eyes snapping shut. He imagined Bulford crumpling to the ground. Precise, clean hole through his head. 

After a moment, Peter opened his eyes again, in time to see Deadpool walk back up to the window. He climbed through it, and looked up at Peter. His gun was holstered again. 

A thousand years passed in that one moment. 

 

Peter met Wade five blocks away. He’d followed him along the street, and Wade knew he was. He ducked into an alleyway, and Peter swung himself down to meet him. 

Peter stood in front of him at a loss for what to do now. 

Deadpool didn’t seem to know either. 

“...Are you hungry?” 

Peter wasn’t. 

 

They ended up sitting on top of a nondescript office building with Arby’s from across the street. 

Peter’s bag with the food he’d perfunctorily ordered sat untouched next to him. Wade was eating, though. Mostly fries. 

Peter had his knees drawn up to his chest, chin resting on top, looking out at nothing.

Wade slurped his drink. 

Peter’s eyes were watering off and on, but he wasn’t really crying. 

“What about the girls?” He asked finally. 

Wade shrugged. 

“Don’t worry about Jaz.” 

“Leli?” 

“I still don’t know who Leli is.” 

Peter shifted his gaze. 

_ “Not me. I wouldn’t go running to one of you for me, you know?”  _ is what Leli said to him. She hadn’t asked for help for herself, and she  _ wouldn’t  _ have. Just for Jaz. Peter would be willing to bet that Leli wouldn’t end up in any better of a situation than she already was in just because Bulford was dead. 

“Why shouldn’t I worry about Jaz?” Peter asked. 

“I’ve got it.” 

Peter wondered what, exactly, that meant. He decided not to ask. 

He felt useless. 

“Some hero I am…” He breathed in one exhale. 

Deadpool glanced at him. 

“...You were there to help.” 

“I didn’t do anything, I  _ pointedly  _ did  _ nothing _ .” 

Deadpool chewed for a few seconds. Slurped his drink. 

“You would’ve found a way.” 

“If  _ you  _ weren’t there,” Peter responded, and turned his head, and even he didn’t really know what he meant by that. 

“...I’ve never felt this brand of awkward before,” Deadpool said after a moment. 

Peter snorted. He turned his head back to look at him and laid his cheek on his knee. 

“You are extremely decisive.” 

Deadpool popped a curly fry into his mouth, “you should see me in the dildo aisle.” 

Despite himself, Peter grinned. After a minute, it slowly faded. He looked away again. 

“Don’t lose sleep over that asshole,” Deadpool said suddenly. 

Peter raised his shoulders. 

“Not everything is...some... _ declaration  _ of who you are as a person,” Deadpool said. 

Peter almost smirked. 

“I’m pretty sure that’s how personhood works, actually,” Peter said. 

Deadpool shook his head, “fake news, Webs. Just because you acted one way in this situation doesn’t mean you’d act the same in another. Everything’s different.” 

Peter pouted, “stop being wise.” 

“Hey, I am very much a  _ dumbass _ , thank you.” 

“Oh, right, I forgot about your  _ philosophy _ .” 

“It’s not a philosophy, it’s a joke. Came up with it on the spot.” 

“I’m sure that’s how most philosophies were created.” 

“Oh, yeah, definitely,” Deadpool agreed. 

Peter could almost forget about the whole  _ thing _ . Almost. 

Peter had a sudden, unwelcome thought. 

“How much are you getting paid?” 

Deadpool seemed surprised for a moment, then recovered. “I’m not.” 

Peter turned towards him. 

“I do rapey bastards and pimps for free.” 

 

Peter entered Avengers tower feeling like a different person. 

Aliens and Supervillains were one thing. That was Black and White. Good Vs. Evil. Humans Against Invading Space Aliens. The Big Bads. 

Human Beings being generally the  _ worst  _ were another, much more common thing. And that was the root of Peter’s problem. 

He didn’t know what he would have done if Wade had not been in Ed Bulford’s apartment. 

Peter wanted to find Leli, but he had no idea what he would say if he did. 

The elevator dinged and he stepped out. He didn’t know why Tony’d called him to the Tower, but he hadn’t been told to come in his suit--though he’d brought it just in case. 

Tony’s lab, at first glance, was empty. Then, he came out of a doorway. 

“Oh, kid, you’re here.” 

“Yep,” Peter replied. 

Tony moved to a table, and picked up a pair of devices. 

“Look--I fiddled with your web shooter design. See if you like ‘em.” 

Peter walked over, and took the web shooters. They were gleaming metal, and a bit more spindly than his current pair. 

“Thanks, I will…” Peter said, without much inflection behind it. 

Tony clapped him on the shoulder, and moved on to a different table. 

“How’s it going? Haven’t seen you in a couple days it feels like. 

Peter held the web shooters at his side and shrugged. 

“Yeah, been busy, I guess...you?” 

Tony nodded. He’d picked up a tablet and was thoroughly invested in whatever was on the screen. But if there was one thing of many Tony Stark could do, it was multitask. 

“Yeah, pretty busy...guess it’s a  _ good  _ thing we haven’t had to call the team together, huh?” 

Peter held up the web shooters. 

“These why you called me?” 

“Yep…” Tony replied distractedly. 

Peter nodded. 

“Right, thanks,” he said, and meant it. It was nice of him. 

Peter left with an unreturned handwave. Tony was gone into whatever he was focusing on now. 

The elevator stopped on floor thirteen, and opened to reveal Steve waiting. He looked surprised to see Peter. 

“Peter. Hey,” Steve greeted, and entered the elevator. He pushed the button for floor three. 

“Hey, Steve,” Peter replied. 

“How’ve you been?” 

Peter opened his mouth to say something casual like  _ ‘fine’  _ or ‘ _ great, you?’ _ , but then he thought about Jaz, and Leli, and Ed Bulford, and found that he couldn’t. So instead he replied-- 

“Okay.” 

\--After a beat or two too long. 

Steve nodded. 

“You?” Peter asked. 

“Pretty good,” Steve replied. 

It seemed this visit to Avengers tower was all pleasantries. 

“We should train together soon. All of us, if we can swing it.” 

Peter nodded. 

“Yeah, that’d probably be good.” 

“Need to be better about keeping on that...everybody’s been so busy lately.” 

_ Busy, busy bugs.  _

They got to floor three. The elevator doors slid open. 

“I’ll message you about training,” Steve said as he moved to exit the elevator. “Oh, and--Happy Birthday, Peter,” he said, patting him on the shoulder and shooting him a smile before finally disembarking. 

“Huh? Oh,” Peter stopped. 

_ Oh yeah.  _

“Thanks!” He called back as the elevator doors closed. 

_ Happy Birthday...right.  _

 

If Steve hadn’t reminded him in the elevator, he would have been only a few minutes later when Aunt May got off work and shot him a text. 

_ ‘Happy Birthday Peter!!! We’re doing dinner sometime this week text me back with some times you’re free!’  _

Peter scratched his brow, and tried to figure out how he’d finagle a birthday dinner into his week. He’d have to, though. Aunt May definitely wouldn’t take no for an answer. 

Peter took the subway home, with his backpack full of Spiderman gear in his lap, earbuds tucked into his ears, not really listening to whatever song was on. Instead, he was staring at a stain on the floor, rattling along with the train. 

He wondered where Leli was. If she was okay. If they’d found Bulford’s body yet. Had the neighbors called the police when they heard the shot? What about Jaz? Wade told him not to worry. 

_ “I’ve got it.”  _

What the fuck did  _ that  _ mean? Why was Peter just so  _ willing  _ to accept that for that? Why had Peter  _ literally done nothing  _ in this entire situation? What was he  _ supposed  _ to do? 

And who, exactly, was supposed to decide  _ that _ ? 

 

_ Well, Peter, if you really think about it...It’s probably  _ **_you_ ** . 

 

If Peter had to guess, Aunt May’s advice probably didn’t also apply to the whole  _ Wade _ thing…

He  _ Really  _ couldn’t deal with any of this right now, though. Not with the jolting sound of a gunshot, and the even worse wracked sobs from Leli’s video rolling over and over inside his head. Peter paused his music. 

He wanted to fix it. Make it right. 

_ Save the world.  _

He couldn’t even save two girls. What had been done to them had already been done to them long before he ever knew anything about it. And in the end, he hadn’t even really done anything about it at all. Besides stand by on a rooftop. 

...Peter  _ really  _ didn’t hate Wade. 

He wanted to see him..

For  _ whatever  _ godforsaken reason... _ fuck. _

Peter went home, took another shower, shoved his backpack under his bed, and watched TV for a long time. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what was this one? sad? terribly so.   
> But here we are. And here we is. 
> 
> Thanks for the read! I hope you enjoyed the story. I'm so happy to be updating!


	6. Your Body Is a Temple

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The temple is on fire. 
> 
>  
> 
> TW: References/mentions of abuse, and references/mentions of an abusive cult.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m back! (baby I’m back). Last chapter (Chapter 5, “In ______ We Trust”) marked the surpassing of 100 kudos (fuck me up you guys, thanks so much!) and the most words out of any Chillin’ On a Building installment. Thanks so much for reading, I really hope you are and continue enjoying this fic. I love these characters a lot.   
> Without further rambling: Welcome to chapter six, my fellow soft cowboys and punk rock legends.

_ I wanna be a bottle blonde  _

_ I don’t know why but I feel conned  _

_ I wanna be an Idle Teen  _

_ I wish I hadn’t been so clean _

 

_ I wanna stay inside all day  _

_ I want the world to go away  _

_ I want blood, guts, and chocolate cake  _

_ I wanna be a real fake  _

 

-

 

It had been twelve days and Peter was--honestly--still reeling. 

He felt like a glass coffee table barely withstanding the weight of three drunk sorority girls. The second a Post Malone song came on, he was fucked. 

He hadn’t been sleeping very well. On top of everything else, finals were rapidly approaching. He couldn’t tell if the insomnia was because of the studying, or if the studying was because of the insomnia. 

It was dark, and it was raining, and he was walking. 

The edge of the building was as familiar to him as it was to a pigeon. 

Thunderstorms interfered with his spider sense. He could feel each roaring vibration a second before it exploded for real in the sky. The effect it left him with was like the crescendo of cymbals being rubbed together, then suddenly  _ c l a s h e d _ , followed by a piercing, lingering ringing. If the thunder claps were close together, it was like the rise, the clash, and the fall was all happening at one time. An uncoordinated symphony. An ocean. 

Peter’s mind was absolutely buzzing. 

Maybe that’s why he didn’t notice the semi. 

He was swinging too low to the ground anyway. There was no reason he should have been, other than he liked the up and down of dropping all the way almost to the pavement, feet nearly brushing the ground, before yanking himself up again. Like bungee jumping. Like rollercoastering. Peter got off on it, if he were being honest. He liked the adrenaline pumping through his chest, the spike of fear that shot through the pit of his belly every time. 

Either way, it hit him like...well, like a fucking semi-truck. 

It met him at the same time a massive burst of thunder erupted and unfurled across the sky. Peter had been feeling it for seconds already, and when it hit, it was like a bomb gone off in his head. It pressed against his skull. Electrocuted him. And then shuddered through his whole body. 

On instinct, he shot out webs. He yanked himself out of the way maybe two split seconds after the initial impact, catching the full force of the truck, but never hitting the ground or being flattened by it. 

Instead, Peter yanked himself off to the side, slapped against the side of a building--

_ Bug, meet Windshield.  _

\--hit the sidewalk, then rolled over his body a few times before coming to a halting sprawl, unable to catch his breath. 

Rain was coming down. The epic thunder clap that had started had still yet to stop, but was mellowing. The ringing of its desist was beginning to kick up. Every bone in Peter’s body was rattling. Teeth on cold nights in haunted mansions. His breaths tasted crunchy. 

Blearily, he looked up at the sky. The tops of the buildings above him, that seemed to curl in over him asking him if he was alright. All he could hear was the ringing, and the rain, and the traffic. A brightly colored shape invaded his blurred vision--different than a building. The voice that came out of it was hardly registered, like when someone tries to tell you something immediately after you’ve woken up, and you have absolutely no memory of it later. 

“ _ Gotta say, Bug...roadkill isn’t a good look for you.”  _

Peter would have rolled his eyes, if his eyes hadn’t rolled back into his head of their own accord. 

He came to approximately eight seconds later. 

“ _ Hey!”  _ He exclaimed, leaping away from the encroaching arms coming towards him. The arms reeled back, and assumed the “ _ I Surrender”  _ position. 

Peter’s chest heaved, he sat up with some effort, bringing one hand up to his head and the other to his chest. He looked around wildly, processing again where he was, what had happened, and what was going on. He looked to his left, and saw Deadpool. 

“Sorry, there, pal, didn’t think you were gonna wake up. Kicked you in the shin and everything.” 

Peter stared up at Deadpool’s masked face, significantly more in focus. 

Deadpool lowered his arms. 

“I didn’t think spider’s could fall,” Deadpool mused. 

Peter swallowed thickly, pushing himself to his hands and knees, then, slowly, his feet. 

“Hey, whoa, you alright there, Spider- _ shitfaced _ ?” Deadpool asked, looking like he wanted to move and was fighting to keep still. 

Peter looked up at him again. 

“Not drunk,” Peter said, still breathing laboriously, “and didn’t fall…” Peter looked over to the busy street next to them. 

“What happened?” Deadpool asked. Peter glanced over to him. 

“I got hit by a truck.” 

Deadpool said nothing for a moment. 

“A truck?” 

Peter didn’t feel like he needed to respond. He wanted to go lie down. Somewhere that wasn’t the ground, preferably, but he really wasn’t picky. It was comfortable enough before. 

“Alright, been there, done that, bought the T-shirt or whatever--that’s really rather an annoying saying, isn’t it? When people are all like ‘ _ been there, done that, bought the T-shirt’ _ , like that’s actually one of the most  _ fuckallwafflin’  _ an _ noying  _ things one could say. Anyway, that’s some sucky shit right there. Really grinds your  _ everything _ , am I right? So, you got hit by a truck, then, as I saw unfold quite spactacularly, hit by a  _ building _ , then you took a little nap on the ground, so...how the fuck are you standing upright right now?” 

Peter was too dizzy to work out all the... _ everything  _ in that sentence, so instead he made a mental check of everything that hurt. 

His head, his torso (probably his ribs...hopefully not broken?) his collarbone, and his knees were the worst. Everything else was probably superficial...

“M’ fine,” Peter said, pressing a hand to the side of his head. 

“Whatever you say, scrambled eggs.” 

“I don’t like scrambled eggs,” Peter murmured, and looked away. 

“Okay...well, you should  _ probably _ get home to the Spidey-Lair…” Deadpool said, raising a hand and ghosting it over Peter’s shoulder, not actually touching him but using the hand to guide him a few steps away from the spot they were standing in anyway. The steps hurt, but it was nothing Peter couldn’t handle. Nothing more than a supervillain beatdown, really. 

“Don’t have a lair,” Peter continued, voice dripping which what sounded like sleepiness. 

“Well, then, wherever Spiderman goes to lay her eggs, then.” 

Peter crinkled up his nose at the comment. 

“Gross…” He said. They were standing under an awning. It was still raining. 

“I should eat...eating will help,” Peter said, brain starting to feel the slightest bit less foggy. 

“I mean...generally, eating  _ always  _ helps,” Deadpool replied, “lucky we just so happen to be outside  _ Lucky’s Cuisine _ .” 

Peter glanced inside the window of the storefront they were outside of. It was the same building he’d collided with a little bit ago. 

“I’ll go in and order some egg rolls or whatever, why don’t you find an alley couch or something, ‘kay? 

Peter just watched as Deadpool walked past him and into the establishment. Then, Peter walked around to the side, where there  _ was  _ an alley, but no couch. Instead, he sunk down to the ground and leaned against the wall of  _ Lucky’s Cuisine _ , drawing his knees up and looping his arms around them. He was still covered from the rain. He leaned his head back against the wall, and willed his healing to work faster despite the effort being futile.  _ Why couldn’t he be like Deadpool and heal virtually simultaneously as the injury?  _

After a few minutes, he heard someone at the mouth of the alley. Looking up, he saw Deadpool with a brown paper bag. He came towards him, and squatted on the ground beside him. 

“You look like you just lost your life savings and house in a poker game. All sad and droopy and cold.” 

“‘M not cold.” 

“You  _ look  _ cold.”

Peter held out his hand for the bag. Deadpool passed it over. Inside were a few to-go boxes, and, on top, a paper package filled with six egg rolls. Peter took one, lifted his mask to his nose, and took a bite. His face twinged with pain with every chew, but it was a bearable ache. There wasn’t any blood in his mouth, at least, and that was something.  _ No serious internal damage!...Hooray. _

“I feel like I found a stray cat or something,” Deadpool commented, finally dropping down from his tiptoe squat to sit, leaning against the wall beside Peter. He reached into the paper bag and stole (though, Peter guessed it wasn’t really theft since Deadpool was the one to actually buy it) an egg roll. 

“Yeah, I’m the picture of patheticness and mediocrity, I get it.” Peter leaned his head back again. 

“Wow, Webs, who pissed in your Frosted Flakes this morning?” 

A faint rumble was beginning somewhere around Peter’s throat, spreading outward. A second later, a clap of thunder hit above.  _ SSSSSSHHHHHHHIIIIIiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnngggggggggg _ … The ringing faded out. 

“You try getting hit by a truck and see how you feel after,” Peter said in response. 

Deadpool barked an ugly laugh, complete with unattractive snort. 

“Getting hit by fast moving vehicles is  _ my  _ song, Spides. You stole my track.” 

Peter just took another bite of his egg roll. They lapsed in a nearly four second long silence. 

“How come we’re always ending up in the same spot?” Peter asked, looking over at Deadpool again, who shrugged. 

“Call it coincidence, call it good old fashioned fate, call it plot-convenience,” Deadpool said nonchalantly. 

“I’ll call it statistically probable considering our chosen professions.” 

Deadpool raised two hands--one holding an egg roll--and weighed them up and down like a scale. 

“Tomato,  _ Ta-mah-toe _ .” 

Peter shook his head. He thought about the truck. He was pretty sure the driver had blared the horn a second before. Then he thought about his clumsy collision with the building. He cringed at himself, and hung his head. 

“ _ ‘M such an idiot,”  _ Peter muttered, face burning. 

“They say idiots have more fun. Plus, you get to go to  _ Jupiter _ .” 

Peter chortled. 

“All worth it then.” 

“ _ Very clearly is _ ,” Deadpool said after shoving a whole eggroll into his mouth. Either that or  _ ‘Berry query wizz’ _ . 

Peter breathed in. Thunder was about to clap.  _ 2...1...C R A C K! L E….. _ the remnants rung in his ears. 

“You can tell when it’s about to thunder?” 

Peter frowned, and looked up and over at Deadpool, who was already staring at him. He must have gauged his confusion. Deadpool gestured to Peter’s free hand, resting on his knee. 

“You’ve tapped your finger on your leg the precise moment it starts to thunder every time the last three times,” he said. 

Peter looked down at the finger in accusation. 

“Oh,” he said. “Yeah,” he responded. 

“What’s that like?” 

Peter shrugged. 

“Loud, I guess. Awesome. Overwhelming.” 

“A rock concert!” 

“Sort of,” Peter said, corners of his mouth lifting. 

They lapsed into a strange sort of silence that made all the pressure in Peter’s chest decompress slowly. Someone letting all the air out of one of those giant bouncy castles. Peter glanced in Wade’s direction, and he was looking at the sky. 

“‘Who pissed off thunder daddy in the sky?” 

Peter blinked, and realized he’d been staring at Wade for a long time. 

“Thor?’ Peter asked, shifting. “Yeah, I don’t know.” 

The storm did seem... _ charged _ . Like it wasn’t quite  _ just  _ the creation of mother nature. 

The comm in Peter’s ear beeped, and he reflexively pushed it immediately to accept the call. 

“ _ Spiderman, there’s a situation!”  _ \--Cap’s voice came through. 

Peter frowned, and sat up. He went to respond, when he felt a tugging in his chest, and he jerked his head to the side just in time to see huge bolt of lighting strike the ground right outside the lip of the alley. Several car alarms started going off. He smelled smoke. 

Peter pushed himself up, and sprinted out of the alley. 

“What the hell’s going on?!” He asked quickly into his comm. He looked around, looking for the source of whatever was happening. 

“ _ It’s a mutant. They’re controlling the storm. We’re on 68th, but she’s moving fast!”  _

Peter jerked to his right. He was on 65th. 

“On my way,” he said, and hit the button on his comm. 

“What’s happening?” Wade asked from beside him. Peter jumped, and looked over. 

“Jesus,” he breathed, then inhaled. “I don’t know. Mutant problem two streets over. Gotta go.” 

Without further preamble, he shot a web at a nearby building, and swung himself up and over it. He flipped through the air, and caught himself with another web. He was on 67th now, about to swing himself over to 68th when a giant burst of thunder  _ shattered _ the air around him. He lost hold of his web, and free fell for all of three seconds before he caught himself, shot a web to slow his fall, and landed steadily on his feet. He looked around. 

At the end of the street to his right, the Avengers were pouring around the corner, running hard. There was a  _ crack  _ and a bolt of lightning shot right between them. It blasted Cap and Hawkeye back. Iron Man was already flying, and Black Widow managed to dive out of the way. 

Peter looked around frantically, trying to find the  _ source _ . He hit the button on his comm violently, hard enough to cause a pain in his ear. 

“Where the fuck are they?!” Peter exclaimed into the comm. There was faint crackling coming from it. 

“ _ Up top somewhere!”  _ Natasha’s voice explained. 

Peter’s head immediately jerked up. He shot a web, and yanked himself up on top of the building closest to him. He searched all the rooftops he could see. He found a figure standing on the edge, shrouded in darkness, but with a silhouette of what looked like static electricity coming off them like sparks. He saw them just in time to watch them fall off the edge. 

With an almost subdued laziness, they tipped off the lip of the building and began to plummet. Peter felt it in his teeth the second before a bolt of lighting  _ erupted  _ from the falling figure, and suddenly they weren’t falling--they were on the ground. 

Peter stared, brain processing quickly as the crumpled person unsteadily rose to hands and knees, collapsed, then finally gathered up their legs under them and straightened and was standing--slumped slightly to the left. 

Peter watched. He could barely see through the sheets of sideways rain. He was soaked down to his core. Everything was dripping. Everything was underwater and shaking. 

The Avengers were running towards her. Iron Man was hovering twenty feet above her. 

“ _ Stay where you are!”  _ Peter heard Cap yell down below as they came up on her. 

People were running. A car in the middle of the street was on fire. Storefront windows were shattered. The build up of a thunderclap was starting. 

The figure turned around slowly, twice, she was being surrounded by cautiously moving hunters. She looked up and saw Iron Man, pointing weaponized palms at her, a beam of light illuminating their slight form. 

Peter stared at scene, felt his breaths coming hard. The thunder that was building stopped. It didn’t plummet, or fade out, it halted Dead Cold Stone in its tracks. 

Peter felt his brows furrow. For a second, everything was absolutely silent inside his head. Rock concert amps plugs yanked out. 

_ 3,2,1… _

Peter moved before he even knew why. 

His teeth grit together, it sparked in his chest and legs and he was shocked on the tip of each one of his fingers through the suit. 

He’d shot a web at the building closest to the mutant and the rest of the Avengers, yanked himself towards it, and let himself fall in time to collide with the woman causing the whole storm at the exact same time energy  _ erupted  _ from her body. An explosion of electricity, pinned between the ground and Peter’s body. He tasted burnt plastic, and then he was yanked into darkness. 

 

A half-assed drizzle of rain was falling from the black void above. Peter felt the drops hit his mask. He opened his eyes blearily. One opened quicker than the other. Blurry shapes filled his vision. Someone was leaning over him. They had a hand on his shoulder. Slowly, he recognized Steve’s masked face. 

Peter made to sit up. The hand on his shoulder pushed him, and he shrugged it off, though the ache in his shoulder said maybe he shouldn’t have. 

For a second, he sat hunched over with his head hung low between his shoulder blades, trying to get a grasp on what the fuck he was feeling. 

His mask smelled like burnt hair and plastic, and he pulled it up to the bride of his nose, then took in great gulps of air. He braced his arms on his knees and stared at the pavement between them for several long seconds. Then, someone was touching his shoulder again. He laboriously looked up and at whoever it was. Steve again. His mouth was moving, but Peter couldn’t hear anything. 

He frowned. Then he noticed the ringing in both his ears. 

Peter focused hard and tried to read Steve’s lips. 

_ ‘Can you hear me?’  _

Peter licked his own dry, cracked lips and frowned. His eyes flicked back up to Steve’s own, and Cap’s were filled with concern. Then, shapes came into focus over Steve’s shoulder. 

The small, unconscious, significantly bruised body of a girl was being lifted carefully by Natasha. Peter braced his hands on his knees, and pushed himself to his feet at the dismay of Steve. He almost stumbled to the side, but managed to right himself. 

There was smoke in the air, Peter realized. All around. And all around it smelled like it. He took a couple steps towards Natasha, who stopped when she noticed him, and looked at him questioningly. Peter stared at the body in her arms. The proper descriptive phrase for her was  _ beaten to hell _ . Her arm hung limply in the air, extended from her body, held against Natasha’s chest. It would have been tender if a large black van was not driving towards them, stopping next to them, Natasha turned towards it. 

People in big radioactive-proof type of intimidating Area 51 suits came out of the back of the truck, and released Natasha of her burden. Peter stumbled forward a few more steps, reaching a hand out towards the broken body, when he felt another hand on his shoulder. He spun around, and nearly lost his balance. Another hand on his other shoulder stopped him from toppling. 

Peter was shocked ( _ ha, electricity pun _ ) to see Deadpool, looming over him, closer than what was comfortable for two supposed enemies. 

Peter could see the contours of Deadpool’s mask moving. He was speaking, but Peter couldn’t hear. Oh my  _ fuck _ , he  _ couldn’t hear _ . He was deaf. Was it permanent? 

Peter shook his head. He pushed away from Deadpool, and tripped a few steps back towards where Natasha and the van and the girl was. The van was driving away. 

“ _ Is she dead? _ ” Peter asked, though he had no idea how loud or quiet he was being. Natasha fixed him with a stern look, and Peter’s stomach dropped.  _ What does  _ that  _ mean?  _

“-- _ erman. SPIDERMAN!”  _

Peter jerked, and spun around. 

“ _ WHAT?!”  _ He exclaimed. Captain America raised one hand towards him. 

“Are you alright?” He asked. Peter assumed he was speaking in a regular tone, but Peter could barely hear. 

Peter cocked an eyebrow. 

“Can you  _ hear  _ me, Peter?” Cap tried again, stepping towards him. 

Peter deflated. 

“Yes,” he answered. He finally looked around. 

Smoke and debris. Glass. Firefighters were putting out a few fires. Several yards away, a civilian lay on the ground with their back facing Peter. Their arm was cocked at an unusual position. 

“What…” Peter paused. He turned slowly. Deadpool was a few feet away, looking around and taking in the surroundings as well. He turned back to Steve. “What happened?” He croaked, finally able to hear his voice somewhat. 

Steve’s face--what of it Peter could see--twisted into a grave expression. 

“Her name is Myra Fielding.” 

“She certainly knows how to throw a party.” 

Peter was almost comforted by Deadpool’s humorous lilt off to the side. 

“What the hell are you doing here?” Tony called as he flew over and landed a few feet away from Wade and Peter. 

“Saw all the pretty lights,” Wade responded, lifting his hands and opening and closing his fingers like that of flashing lightbulbs. 

Tony, even with the mask, looked unimpressed. 

“Correction--What are you  _ still  _ doing here?” 

Wade shrugged, and leaned back against a van with all its windows shattered and airbags slowly deflating. 

“I like drama.”

Tony glanced at Peter, and Peter felt way to dizzy to feel anything about it. 

“What?” Peter asked in response to Tony’s glance. 

Tony said nothing. He took a few steps away and started conferring with Natasha. 

“You all have some  _ weird  _ communication skills.” 

Peter glanced in Wade’s direction, and something twinged in his gut. It was weird to be sharing the same space with both the Avengers  _ and  _ Wade. Lately he’d been feeling like he was two different people depending on who he was with. Well, he was  _ usually  _ two different people--Peter Parker and Spiderman, but usually there weren’t extra subgenres within those two egos. Peter really couldn’t handle any moral or identity crisis’ right now. 

“What’cha gonna do with Lady Thor?” Deadpool piqued up. Tony and Natasha looked back at him. Deadpool’s posture remained expectant, arms folded, one foot crossed over the other. 

“None of your concern. Peter, we gotta go,” Tony said, and walked past both of them to retrieve Steve, a few yards away helping lift a man onto a gurney to be put in an ambulance. Natasha had turned away and walked a few steps off, speaking lowly into her comm. 

Peter turned to Wade. 

Wade stood up, and took on a southern drawl. 

“Daddy’s callin’.” 

Peter held up his middle finger tiredly, and walked away. 

“Hey, Bug!” Wade called.

Peter stopped, and turned around. 

“Don’t let them be dicks.” 

 

“Where are we going?” Peter asked as he caught up with Tony, Steve, and Natasha, all waiting as a car drove up beside them. All four doors opened. No one was driving it. Natasha immediately got into the driver’s seat, Steve in the passengers, and Peter and Tony took the back. 

“Where all this started, apparently,” Tony responded, lifting his faceplate. 

Peter sunk into his seat with a relief he felt deep in his bones. 

“Hey, you okay, kid?” Tony asked, looking over at him. “Should we detour to the Tower?” 

Peter shook his head, leaning it back against the headrest. 

“Nah. I’ll be fine.” 

He felt Tony’s stare. Calculating. Deliberating whether or not he’d trust that response, and then he leaned back as well. 

“Clint and Bruce are already there.” 

“Where?” Steve asked from the front. 

“The secluded community called  _ The Haven _ ,” Natasha replied. 

“A cult,” Tony added. 

Nat nodded. 

“She’s from a cult?” Peter asked. 

“The only reason we know is because four years ago her and her older brother’s parents died. Both electrocuted. Police investigated, but couldn’t find anything substantially shady going on. They’ve only been able to keep loose tabs on the place,” Natasha explained. 

“She killed her parents?” Steve asked. 

“Sure sounds like it,” said Tony.

“What about the brother?” 

Natasha glanced in the rearview mirror at Peter. 

“Received custody of Myra.” 

Peter tapped his fingers against his leg. 

“What  _ are  _ we going to do with her?” Peter asked the car full of superheroes. A few seconds of silence made every nerve in Peter’s body spark. 

Finally, Steve replied.

“We’ll figure that out after we know more about the situation.” 

 

The drive was dark, and took two and a half hours. For the last half hour or so, there was nothing--not so much as a gas station--around for miles. Just trees and old roads. They hadn’t seen another car for miles. Had taken several small, old, narrow roads that would have been hard to notice had Natasha not known where she was going. 

Now they were pulling up to the open gate of  _ The Haven _ . 

Peter had lived in the city all his life. He wasn’t used to this kind of dark. Only illuminated by their headlights, and those of the car Clint and Bruce had taken and was parked in the middle of the semicircle of buildings. Off to the side of the semicircle were a few small houses. 

Gravel crunched under their tires as Nat parked next to Clint and Bruce. Both of the cars were lighting up the front of a small white building with a steeple--a chapel. Across the front step, spread out underneath a jagged, charred-edged hole in the roof of the porch was the still smoking corpse of a woman. 

“Jesus Christ,” Tony said, then got out of the car. 

The rest of them hopped on out as well. They neared the body, looking down at it as a group. They heard footsteps behind them, and all turned around to see Clint and Bruce coming towards them, walking across the expanse of the gravel circle between the buildings. 

“Any survivors?” Steve called. 

Clint shook his head. 

“How many people lived here?” Tony asked, turning to Natasha, who lifted her iPad. 

“Thirty-four is the number we have,” Natasha said. 

“We only found nineteen bodies,” Clint said. “We checked everywhere.” 

Peter wondered how long they’d been there. 

“The rest must have fled during or after it happened this morning,” Natasha said, glancing off to the side. Peter followed her gaze, though even with heightened senses couldn’t see much in the encroaching darkness surrounding them. 

“Yeah, we, um...found something,” Bruce said, and shifted from foot to foot. 

_ That _ sounds spectacular.

 

The basement was dark and windowless and on the ground in front of looked like an altar complete with four foot tall wooden cross were chains and shackles bolted to the floor. The shackles were bloody--as was the floor around it, along with scorch marks on the metal and the ground. Off to the side was a  _ Cat of Nine Tails _ whip. Peter walked towards it. Dried blood coated the wicked strands of leather. 

“We think this is where they...kept her,” Clint said. 

“Who’s that?” Peter asked, referencing the body crumpled in the corner. His hands were almost gone, charred to pieces. 

Natasha stepped closer to the corpse, and then looked at her iPad again. 

“Andrew Fielding. Her other brother. We only know anything about this place because their parents died four years ago and the police came out and did an investigation on the place. They didn’t find anything.” 

“Didn’t find this?” Steve inquired. 

“It may not have existed then,” Bruce murmured, inspecting the altar. 

Peter couldn’t stop staring at the whip. 

“My theory is…” Bruce started, standing up and rubbing his forehead with the flat of his hand, “that he kept her chained up and beat her trying to rid her of the demons possessing her,” he said. “There’s carvings in the wood--bible verses. When Paul exorcises a possessed slave girl.” 

Peter looked back at the whip. He felt like he might throw up at any time. He had been feeling like that sense he woke up on the street. 

 

They went back to the Tower as the police were taping the place up.  

“She’s in a cell for now,” Tony said. 

“For now?” Peter inquired, stopping Tony before they went through the doors. Tony looked at him. 

“For now,” he repeated. “We’ll see what happens next.” 

Peter moved past him, and got into an elevator. 

“JARVIS--” 

“ _ Myra Fielding’s holding cell is on the 40th floor.”  _

 

She was covered in scars. The back of her hands, up her arms, her collarbones, her back. Some of her wounds were very fresh. Dark circles hung heavy under her eyes. She sat on the floor in the corner, her knees drawn up, arms wrapped around them. She looked very much like a small child, and nothing like the girl who killed twenty-nine people and creates lightning storms. 

“Who did that to you?” Peter asked, crouching down in front of her. 

She said nothing. Just stared at him warily. 

After a second, Peter pulled off his mask. 

Their eyes met, and Peter couldn’t look away if he tried. 

“The man we found in your house...” Peter said, “your brother?” 

Myra did not respond again. 

“Did he hurt you?” Peter asked, trying for delicacy. Like balancing one of those champagne glass pyramids on a bowling ball. “Because of what you can do?” 

Myra looked down at the floor, holding her arms around herself tighter. Peter wanted to reach out. He wanted to hold her hand, and tell her no one could hurt her anymore. But he didn’t know if that was a promise he could keep. 

He watched her face screwing up, tears collecting in the corners of her eyes and threatening to spill over. 

“They called me the Devil.” 

Her voice was quiet. Broken. Barely more than a whisper. 

“You are not the Devil, Myra,” Peter responded quietly. Myra’s eyes closed. It looked like she’d fallen asleep, she was so still. “The things you can do…” Peter continued, “other people can do them to. There are things I can do, too, Myra,” Peter said. 

Her eyes opened, and slowly moved up to look at his face again. Peter didn’t know how to read the expression on her face.  

Myra shook her head.  

“ _ I think they were right _ ,” she said, and if Peter hadn’t had supernatural hearing, he wouldn’t have caught the barely whispered words at all. 

“No, Myra, listen. There’s  _ nothing  _ wrong with you--” Peter stopped, because he didn’t know how to continue. He felt his own tears welling up. 

Myra was no longer looking at him. She was looking past him, eyes glazed over like she was lost in thought or memory, tears leaving slow streaks down her face. 

“I killed them...because of what they did to me...” her voice shook, “They made me the Devil.” 

Myra finally looked up at me him again, and Peter understood the meaning. 

She killed them, thus confirming that she was the Devil. No matter how wrong that actually was. 

A tear slipped down Peter’s cheek, and he looked away. 

 

He showered slowly, because it hurt to lift his arms above his head. He tried not to let too much into his head. Tried to just focus on the water, and the rivulets running off his skin. He could still taste the electricity under his tongue. The stiffness in his limbs. He needed to eat, but he didn’t have much of an appetite. 

Wade’s voice shot through his thoughts:  _ “Don’t let them be dicks.” _

After showering, he got dressed in Peter Parker clothes. 

_ “Mr. Stark is requesting all Avengers in the conference room, Spiderman,”  _ JARVIS’s voice spoke from above. 

Peter put on his shoes, shoved his suit into his backpack, and left to find an elevator. 

 

The elevator ride was quiet. He always felt small when he came here in just his Peter Parker clothes. His soft hoodies and blue jeans didn’t give him the confidence--the sense of belonging or importance of being in the Spiderman suit. He was just some college kid in beat-up sneakers. 

Today, somehow, it made no difference to him.

Anger was clutching his chest like a bank robber who’d been cornered by some police and was holding a hostage like a human shield in front of them. It silhouetted him.

The elevator stopped, and the doors slid open. He stepped out. 

Tony and Steve were still suited up when he walked into the room where they met. Bruce and Clint were there. Everyone was seated at the table except for Clint, who stood against the wall with his arms crossed, reminding Peter of a bodyguard or something. Peter debated shortly whether to stand or sit, and ultimately decided to sit. A seat down and across the table from Tony. Directly across from Bruce. Steve was next to Tony at the end. Clint was behind him. Peter and Bruce’s gazes met briefly. 

Before anyone could say anything, Natasha walked in, and stood behind the chair at the other end of the table across from Steve. 

“We need to talk about the girl,” Steve said. 

“Myra Fielding,” Peter corrected. Steve looked at him. 

“Yes.” 

“She killed twenty six people,” Natasha said--face stern and blank as ever. 

_ ‘How many people have you killed, Natasha?’  _ If Peter perhaps had the slightest bit more conviction, he would have said it. Instead, he bit the inside of his cheeks, and looked at the table. He would have to weigh his words carefully. 

“She was abused most of her life,” Bruce said lowly. 

Peter thought that at that moment Natasha might have thought: “ _ So was I.” _ , but he didn’t know her well enough to say for sure--or that she would ever bring her personal past and life into a mission. Clint probably knew her well enough. 

“That doesn’t give her a free pass for killing over two dozen people, and injuring dozens more” Steve said quickly, though not in any tone that was accusing. 

“A lot of them were her abusers,” Clint spoke up from the wall. 

“And the ones who weren’t?” Natasha responded.

“She’s only seventeen,” Peter said. 

“We can’t just give her a free pass like nothing happened…” Clint said reluctantly. 

“That’s not what I’m saying!” Peter responded. 

“No one’s saying that,” Steve held up a placating hand. 

Bruce took off his glasses and massaged the bridge of his nose; “We can’t just sit here and play judge, jury, and executioner on this poor girl’s life.” 

Peter agreed with Bruce. 

“Who else is going to do it?” Tony asked. 

“We go through the proper channels--” 

Peter’s heart sunk at the very mention. Mutant’s rights had become better over the years, but he couldn’t imagine what could happen if Myra’s case was brought before any jury in a court of law. If the wrong people were on it, they might have her locked up or killed for the mere fact of her being a mutant at all. 

Tony interrupted Bruce’s suggestion with a snort. 

“Yeah, right-- _ courtrooms  _ aren’t equipped to deal with these situations,” he said. 

“And we are?” Steve inquired with an incredulous quirk of his eyebrow. 

Tony glanced over at him, essentially giving him the side eye. 

“Kinda our  _ job _ , Cap,” he said. 

“It’s not right for us to just--” 

“But it is what it is, so I suggest you get with it, or plead the fifth. Either way, a decision has to be made,” Tony interrupted. Everyone lapsed into several seconds of silence. 

“She doesn’t deserve to be imprisoned for the rest of her life,” Peter said lowly. 

Everyone looked at him. The brief pause of silence that ensued was painful. 

“She hurt people. She’s dangerous, and that  _ has  _ to be taken into account,” Tony said.

“She needs help. Not a collar, a tag, and a cage,” Peter replied darkly, trying to keep his voice even. 

Steve rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb. 

“She’s a hazard,” Natasha said, fixing him with a look. 

Peter’s eyes snapped to her, expression of disbelief, “because she’s a mutant? Because she was abused most her life for it? Because she finally had enough of it?” 

“No, Peter, because she can’t control herself.” Natasha replied, composure a taut pulled rope as always. 

“Have any of you even fucking  _ talked to her _ ?” 

“You’re making this personal, kid,” Tony said. 

_ Wrong thing to say, Iron Man.   _

“Of  _ course  _ It’s fucking personal!” Peter shouted, standing at the same time and nearly knocking over his chair in the sudden jerk of movement. 

Ever wondered what it was like to shock a room full of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes? Peter certainly didn’t have to anymore. 

“She was  _ tortured!  _ Her  _ whole life _ ! Told she was the goddamn  _ devil _ ! I can’t  _ look  _ at this unbiased!” 

“Calm down, Peter,” Tony said. 

“Let me  _ help  _ her--!” Peter started, frustration jammed into his tone. 

“You can’t help her, Peter!” Tony exclaimed, now standing as well. “You can’t just  _ make  _ people better!” The frustration in his voice was a match for Peter’s.

“What the  _ fuck  _ is the point if I don’t try?!” Peter spat, voice nearly breaking on the word ‘ _ fuck’ _ . 

A moment of terse, silent,  _ beatbeatbeat _ later; Peter dropped his head into his hand and scrubbed it over his face tiredly. 

“I agree with Peter,” Steve said. 

Peter looked up, as did everyone else. 

Steve was still sat in his chair, arm resting on the tabletop and hand in a tight fist. There were concentration lines etched onto his forehead. 

“She doesn’t deserve it.” 

“SHIELD’s already picked her up,” Natasha said solemnly, hand retracting from her ear, which no one had noticed was holding her earpiece as she was fed information from someone or another. “It’s over either way,” she ended. 

Peter huffed out a breath that was half disbelieving sigh, half frustrated scoff. He dragged both his hands over his mouth, and then templed his fingers against it, staring intently at the tabletop. 

Tony’s shoulders slouched and he massaged his forehead. 

Peter shook his head and closed his eyes and had never felt so shitty in his life. 

In the midst of all their meaningless fucking debate, SHIELD--the Forces That Be--had come and snatched her right out from under them. Taken her off to God Knows Not Where probably to lock her up  _ again  _ for the rest of her life. 

If Peter was angry before, he didn’t know what the fuck this was. 

He pushed the chair out of the way, sending it across the room, and was out the door before another second had passed. 

He heard someone follow him. 

“Peter, stop. Don’t do something stupid.” 

Peter snorted in an ugly way at the words and the mouth they were coming from. Tony Stark of all people telling him not to do something stupid. 

“Kid! I’m telling you to fucking  _ stop! _ ” Tony Stark: Iron Man, reached out and grabbed Peter’s arm.

It was like time fucking slowed down. 

We all know of that one person in that shitty, awful relationship who keeps staying with their significant other because “ _ baby, I didn’t mean it. I don’t know what happened in that moment. That’s not me. It’ll never happen again, I swear, it wasn’t me.”  _ Kind of a convenient excuse, huh? Complete bullshit, of course. 

Peter could never relate to the feeling of just having  _ snapped  _ more than when he felt himself reel his arm back, close his fingers into a fist, and then bring it directly into Tony’s face. 

Tony put down his faceplate a split second before impact, and Peter felt the shocks of pain shoot up his arm. A loud  _ clang  _ rang out in the empty hallway. Then it was dead silent. 

Peter’s chest heaved. He held his shaking right arm slightly extended from his side, bloody knuckles stinging, and looked up to see a dent in Iron Man’s faceplate, which probably couldn’t have felt good on Tony’s face. 

Tony reached up, and had to manually help pry the faceplate up. Tony sucked in a breath, and spat a glob of blood out of his mouth onto the floor. His nose was gushing it. He looked up at Peter a second later, eyes wide, rage and disbelief rippling in shifts across his expression. 

“Never forget,” Peter’s voice was shaking with anger, staring intently at Tony. “You’re human,” he said, and now he glanced towards Natasha and Steve who were there now for some reason, both staring at him and keeping their distance, expressions made of stone and unreadable. With venom in his voice, he spat two words: “I’m  _ Not _ .” 

 

-

 

_ Yeah I wish I’d been, I wish I’d been a teen, teen idle  _

_ Wish I’d been a prom queen, fighting for the title  _

_ Instead of being sixteen and burning up a bible  _

_ Feelings super, super, super suicidal  _

 

_ The wasted years, the wasted youth _

_ The pretty lies, the ugly truth _

_ And the day has come where I have died _

_ Only to find, I've come alive _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (song lyrics at the beginning and end of this chapter are from “Teen Idle” by MARINA)  
> Apologies for this update taking so long. I was in an altogether life-rutt that extended to writing. I spent several days unable to write anything, or think about writing anything, which is not the norm for me. But no worries! I’m back with the longest chapter yet. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, it once again dealt with some heavier topics but hey...growth don’t happen through sunshine and rainbows. Well, it does, biologically, but I’m talking about the more internalintellectualspiritual kind of growth.   
> Myra’s arc will continue in the next chapter. You’ve not heard the last of her. Also, we are getting soooooo close to Spideypool now. I’m so excited.   
> As for the ending punchline (get it?) I really, really enjoyed writing it and I really love it. Sorry for this extremely long end note, but it’s been a while, and we’ve reached some milestones so I figured I’d chat for a sec. Thanks again! Love and soft pajama bottoms!


	7. Maybe We're Horrible People (Maybe It's Maybelline)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long time no see, my guy! Good to see you again! This chapter contains the edited version of the very first scene I ever wrote for this fic, and I’m super excited! Hope you enjoy!

The only thing to illuminate the room and Peter’s palid face was the harsh blue glow of his laptop screen, perched on his chest as he laid in bed in a position that probably would have been bad for his spine if not for the fact of it being incredibly bendy. 

The horror movie binge he had been on was doing a fine job of desensitizing him to everything else going on in the world and in his head. It was easy not to think when you were staring at a nonstop loop of gratuitous gore flashing across your screen. 

Peter was, once again, avoiding his problems. 

It was wrong, and immature, and not very  _ superhero  _ like of him. 

Did that motivate him to get his ass out of bed? 

No. No it didn’t. 

Because at the end of the day, when the world goes up in flames, and all the people you ever loved are dead at your feet, all you’ll really feel is a cold, slightly tingling numbness, and you won’t actually do anything about it at all. 

_ Jesus, okay.  _

Maybe it was the howeverthefuckmany volts of electricity that got shot through his whole body talking. Or maybe it was the semi truck he hit from before that. 

Peter rubbed his hand across his eyes. 

Maybe it was just him. 

Finally, he closed his laptop, got up, and stretched. He was painfully stiff from being electrocuted however many hours before. He squinted out the window where the sun was starting to burn the rest of the world into a fiery orange and yellow, eating up all the steel blue and grey of dawn. 

_ Is that picturesque enough for you?  _

He pushed his hair back from his forehead and let out a breath, wondering just what the hell he was going to do. 

Almost conveniently, his phone started ringing at about that moment. 

‘ _ Nat _ ’ was the contact name on the screen. 

Immediately, Peter felt fear shoot down his back. The episode of yesterday that he had spent the last couple of hours trying  _ heavily  _ to ignore burst back up to the surface as quickly as he knew it would. 

For a split second, he considered not answering. 

Then he mentally berated himself, and answered the fucking phone. 

Without any sort of introduction or explanation, Natasha shot off an address. Street, building, apartment number. Peter scrambled to keep up, repeating it twice in his head before speaking. 

“What?” He asked. 

“ _ You didn’t really think we’d leave that girl out to dry?”  _ Natasha’s voice came drily over the other line. 

Peter’s heart thumped in his throat. 

“ _ What? _ ” he repeated. 

“ _ Come now. She wants to talk to you. _ ” 

“What are you talking about? Do you mean _Myra_? Is Myra fucking—”

Nat hung up. 

Slowly, Peter lowered the phone from his ear, and blinked. 

For a second, he felt shanghaied. Then, he barked out a sardonic laugh in the solitude of his bedroom and pressed his hand to his eyes. 

_ Stupid fucking idiot Spider _ . 

He put on his shoes, and left his apartment, keeping up an internal string of curses and expletives all the way to the apartment building Natasha had told him to go to. 

 

The apartment was in an unassuming not-quite-middle-class neighborhood. Apartment 26 was on the second floor, and the door was a weird faded yellow color. He knocked, and was surprised to be greeted by a Steve Rogers wearing a purple T-shirt and jeans. 

It was extremely fucking weird to see Steve Rogers in a purple T-shirt. 

He let him in, and closed the door without saying anything. 

“Nat called you,” Steve said. 

“Yeah,” Peter replied, frowning at the man, “what’s going on?” 

Steve glanced to the left, Peter followed his line of sight to the living room, and his heart froze in his chest. 

Myra was sitting in the corner by the window, staring outside. Now, though, she was wearing jeans and a hoodie and looked like she’d had a shower and her hair was pulled back with a hair tie and even with the bruises she looked a lot better than the soaked-through broken body Peter’d seen the day before. 

Nat entered from another room, and walked over when she saw him. 

“What-” 

She interrupted Peter. 

“It wasn’t S.H.I.E.L.D who got her,” she explained in a low voice, possibly to not be overheard by the girl in the other room. 

Peter’s mouth snapped shut as he caught up. 

The Avengers had swooped in and saved the day.  _ They’d  _ gotten Myra out of the Tower before S.H.I.E.L.D could even show up and potentially try to take matters into their own hands. They were hiding her in an apartment that possibly the only person who’d be capable of tracking down was JARVIS. 

It crashed against him like he was the Titanic and it was an iceberg, and he had to clamp down on that, too, before he could let it take over.  _ Not the time, not the time.  _

“She said she wanted to talk to you,” Steve said, and Peter’s head turned quickly to look at him. 

Like the day before, both of the Supers’ in front of him had unreadable expressions. 

Natasha jerked her head in Myra’s direction. 

Peter shoved everything that wasn’t this moment, as well as all his hesitance and fear, down and out and somewhere  _ else _ , and approached the skinny girl on the floor. 

“Hey,” Peter said, and sat down in front of her, crossing his legs underneath him. Myra met his eyes briefly, then looked at his shirt instead. “They said you wanted to see me?” 

Peter watched Myra’s throat as she swallowed, her eyes flit quickly from his face, to the floor, back to his shirt. 

“You...threw yourself on top of me, before,” she said quietly, and drew her knees up to her chest. 

Peter swallowed. 

“Um...yeah, I—yeah,” he answered. 

“How’d you know?” She asked, eyes flicking up to meet his briefly once more, genuine curiosity behind them. 

“I don’t—” Peter stopped, and scrubbed his hand through his hair. He thought through what he should say, and looked at her again. “I told you about how I can do things too? Kind of like you?” 

Myra shifted, almost like she was uncomfortable. Peter thought maybe the whole topic of her mutantity made her uncomfortable. Couldn’t blame her. “Part of what I can do has to do with...sensing things. Like danger, or lightning,” he explained, keeping his voice lower than usual. 

“But you’re not...you didn’t get  _ electrocuted _ ,” she ended with a whisper, her eyes wide and staring past him at a point on the floor. Her hands gripped her knees, knuckles white. 

He kept pity out of his eyes, and tried to just  _ look  _ at her. Normal, like any other person. 

“I’m secretly made of rubber,” he tried to joke, but his half-smile slid pathetically off his face when all he was met with was a quick furrow of Myra’s eyebrows and then her quick attempt at covering it up. 

_ Right, I’m an idiot. Moving on.  _

“Things don’t hurt me as bad as if I wasn’t— _ the way that I am _ ...and I heal fast,” he said. 

Myra picked at the hem of the blue jeans she was wearing. Her lips moved almost imperceptibly several times, as if she wanted to say something, but was having trouble working up the courage. Peter stayed silent and waited.  

“How are you—I mean,  _ why  _ are you—we—am I…” Myra trailed off, teeth sinking into her lower lip. Finally, she sighed, shoulders deflating. “You said you’re like me?” She asked, looking up at him. Peter nodded. 

“Why are we like this?” She asked. 

Peter worried his lower lip like Myra had. 

“Did the others tell you about mutants?” He asked. 

Myra looked away again, and he took that as a no. It  _ had  _ only been a day. He can’t imagine  _ much  _ had been discussed in the minimal amount of time they’d been here. 

“Well, it’s like this,” he said, and straightened up a bit. He gestured to himself and then Myra. “We’re human. But we also have different genes than—um...do you know what genes are?” 

Myra bit her lip. 

“Okay, well, genes are like...they’re like little things in your blood that make you who you are. Like, you can move, and walk, and talk, and you have brown hair, and brown eyes, and freckles because of the specific genes you have.” 

Myra looked up at him with the expression of a girl who’d been held captive by a cult her whole life. 

“And  _ we _ ,” he gestured between them again, “have  _ different  _ genes—or,  _ more _ —and they’re called  _ mutant  _ genes. Thus, we’re Mutants. Some of us are born that way, and others have something happen to make us that way. You were—well, you were born with mutated genes, which is why you can do the things you do.” 

Myra’s eyes drop again. 

“It’s not a bad thing, most of the time,” Peter said, a bit awkwardly, after a moment. 

Myra didn’t respond. 

“But there  _ are _ ? Evil Mutants?” 

“No,” Peter said definitively. “There are  _ bad people _ . No one is inherently bad, or...evil. Being a Mutant doesn’t make you evil,” Peter continued, and felt weird saying the word “ _ evil _ ”. 

Myra said nothing, and after a minute Peter felt like he needed to say something. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t fight harder for you,” Peter said softly. 

Myra just looked at him with her big eyes and her shorn hair and the burns like lighting striking tree roots wrapping around her bony arms. 

Peter looked away towards the kitchen, where he’d come in. From their spot on the floor, he couldn’t see Steve or Natasha. Peter looked back when Myra responded. 

“‘S okay,” she said finally, almost inaudible, wrapping those arms around herself. Peter wondered if she was saying that because she meant it or just because she felt like it was what she was supposed to say. 

“I don’t know why you  _ would _ ,” She continued, and looked away. 

“Because you deserve a chance,” Peter said candidly. “Because people hurt you. Because you’re not a bad person.” 

“I don’t know if I am or not,” she murmured, “I don’t know if...” she stopped, her eyes flicked back and forth. 

“ _ It’s never happened before _ ,” she continued. and Peter strained to hear her quiet whispering. 

“Something like that, something so  _ big _ …” 

He assumed she meant the storm, and all the destruction it produced. 

“I couldn’t control it.” 

Peter felt his heartbreak. She sounded broken. Shattered, like her storm. 

“I know,” Peter replied, hoping to convey that he understood. That he knew she didn’t mean to do so much. 

Myra lifted her head, and looked at his shirt again, eyes flicking back and forth as lines of worry, and panic, and urgency pulled at her expression suddenly. 

“It’s like—it’s like once it  _ started _ , it wouldn’t  _ stop _ , and I couldn’t—it wouldn’t—I didn’t  _ want  _ to...I didn’t  _ want  _ it to stop because it was too hard, and It was easier to just...” Myra stopped, hands lifted from her knees and fingers curled inward slightly like claws. She lowered her arms slowly.

“I understand,” he said, because that’s all he could do. All he could do was  _ understand _ . 

_ And not a damn thing to help _ ,  _ apparently _ .  

Myra hid her face in her knees. Peter pushed aside his own self-...what? Pitying? Loathing? Incriminating-ness? Whatever, he pushed it aside, and took a risk by reaching out, touching her shoulder lightly with the tips of his fingers. She twitched, but didn’t altogether pull away, so he left his hand there for a moment, then pulled back.

He couldn’t really tell her it was all okay. Twenty six people were dead and that would  _ never  _ be okay. But Myra...it was  _ understandable _ . It couldn’t be set right, but she didn’t have to be condemned. 

“You were scared, and out of control,” he said, and Myra tensed harder, “Now you just have to...try and make sure that doesn’t happen again. And we—” Peter sighed heavily, because even the word “ _ we _ ” felt weird; like a lie, or a misnomer. “—we’re gonna try and help.” 

 

Natasha and Clint were, surprisingly, playing cards at the kitchen table like two FBI agents in a cop show charged with keeping someone safe under witness protection. 

Steve was putting groceries away. 

Peter leaned against the counter. 

Clint glanced up into the living room where Myra was still sitting on the floor staring out the window. 

“She’s been there all day,” Clint said. 

“She probably hasn’t had a view before,” Steve replied. 

Peter ran his hand over his face tiredly.  _ Tired, tired, tired _ . God,  _ tired _ was a fucking virius. 

“What’d you guys talk about?” Steve asked. 

“Mutants, and...what happened.” Peter said, and slipped his hands into his pockets. 

Steve hummed, and closed the fridge. Peter stared at the floor, and wanted to melt into it. 

“Thank you, by the way,” Steve said. 

Peter looked up at him, cocking an eyebrow. 

“For jumping on top of her. Taking the blow.” 

Ah. The electrocution. Yes. 

Peter half-shrugged, unconsciously turning his head to the side to stretch his stiff neck. He watched, a bit confusedly, as Steve seemed to struggle with words for a second. And then: 

“What  _ is it  _ with you and Deadpool?” 

_ Of all the fucking questions _ .

_ You’re not curious about why I punched Tony in the face, Steve? Like—not even a little?  _

“What do you mean?” Peter asked, feeling panic slice up through his throat even though, really, it was unwarranted. 

Steve arched an eyebrow; ‘ _ Seriously _ ?’, it asked. 

Peter sighed. 

“Nothing,” he said, and lifted one hand to rub the back of his neck. “We just...happened to be in the same place when I got the call.” 

“You happen to be in the same place quite a lot.” 

The thing about Steve is that he never  _ accused  _ you of things. He just said shit, and made it sound like your good-natured old grandpa was giving you relationship advice, or an offhand fact about some obscure profession or procedure of how a boat engine is repaired. 

“Tell me about it,” Peter answered with a mutter, looking off to the side. He didn’t let the silence continue for long before he faced him again and screwed up his face. “Why are we talking about this?” 

Steve looked like he’d say something, then seemed to change his mind. 

“Is she safe here?” Peter asked, bringing the subject back to the matter at hand. 

“Yes,” Natasha answered, not looking up from her hand of cards which she was concentrating on furiously. Peter had no idea what game she and Clint were playing. 

“Who’s staying with her?” 

“Me. For now,” Nat answered, “And Clint.” 

_ Oh, good, house murder-parents.  _

Really, though, they were probably the best options. 

“For now?” 

Nat looked up briefly. 

“We’re taking it day by day,” She said quickly and toneless, and it was the closest Peter had ever heard Natasha come to avoiding a question, or not knowing the answer to one. 

“What’s going to ha-” 

Peter stopped when Clint wordlessly pointed at the counter behind him. He turned around to see the stack of papers resting on the countertop. On top of the stack lay a birth certificate for  _ Emilia Jones _ . 

“It’s taken care of.” 

And all in under a day. 

Peter put down the papers and stood with his arms hanging uselessly at his sides. 

“Right.” 

“Go home, Peter,” Natasha said, and put down a card that made the corners of Clint’s mouth tip down. 

“Right,” Peter said again. 

He cast another glance back at Myra, who was still staring out the window. Steve walked out of the kitchen and towards her, squatting down at her level a respectable distance away. From the side of his face, Peter could see that he had the Steve Rogers Puppy Dog Eyes on full blast. Myra turned her head to look at him, nodding to whatever he said. 

Peter looked away, back towards Clint and Natasha, and then the front door which he’d come through not twenty minutes ago. 

“Right…” he said again, “thanks, for...calling,” he said. 

Natasha said nothing. 

“Right.” 

He didn’t know if that was his third, or fourth “ _ right _ ” of the last ten seconds. He left before he could give himself the chance to remember. The weird yellow colored door closed behind him. He stared at the plastic number  _ 2  _ and  _ 6  _ for a minute, not moving. 

“Right…” He breathed out, turned, and started walking back down the hall. 

 

Peter went home cold, and numb, and silent. Like a big iron gate had clamped shut around his mind. The thoughts only started to trickle in past the barricade as he was unlocking his door and stepping inside, taking off his shoes, going to the closet without much consciousness involved. 

_ They didn’t tell him _ . 

They didn’t tell him that they were rescuing Myra. They didn’t bring him into the loop. Didn’t want his help. Didn’t trust him. 

Only after, when it was all said, and done, and too late to fuck up did they call. And only because Myra asked them to. 

_ Who could fucking blame them?  _

Afterall, what had Peter done in response to learning Myra had been “taken in by S.H.I.E.L.D”? He’d thrown a fit, then gone home and ignored the problem. 

Peter sat on the edge of his bed, half into his Spiderman suit. 

It was the same thing as what happened with Jaz and Leli. Another person was hurt, and Peter was too busy having a war with himself to do anything about it. 

He was just an untrustworthy kid who got bit by a spider, playing at being a Superhero. 

_ No more. No more, no more, no more.  _ Something’s gotta break. 

_ Some’in’s gotta give.  _

He finished getting into his suit, and absconded from his window, throwing himself out into the big free open air.

 

Peter was crouched on the ledge of a building in downtown. He was peoplewatching, and letting the sounds of the city wash over him. He was sitting there. Minding his own business. Clearing his head. 

The choice of building had been random. He’d just landed here because it was the best place the trajectory of his last web had sent him.

He turned his head to scan the street below him, and did a triple-take. 

Peter scoffed sardonically to himself. 

At this point, should he really be surprised? It’s like there was a web strung between them wrapping across the whole goddamn city. 

Wade fucking Deadpool fucking Wilson. Just there, coming out of one of the currently closed strip clubs.

Let chick-flicks and apparently Peter’s life now be a lesson unto you...the apple ain’t big enough, y’all. 

_ So this is what cowboys meant.  _

If only Wade could fucking die. 

_ One problem in a list of one hundred solved.  _

Peter squatted down on the edge of the building, watching Deadpool from where he was, out of sight from above. He was down the street, seeming to  _ meander  _ more than anything else. It looked like he had some upbeat opening credits soundtrack playing in the background. 

_ Murderer, bad guy, crazy person, doesn’t care about body counts, doesn’t care about anybody, slippery-slope, wildcard, annoying _ . 

All things Peter had heard said about Deadpool to him in the...what? Almost-month he’d known him?  _ God, it’s been a month _ . 

_ Something’s gotta break _ . 

Deadpool stopped in front of a storefront Peter couldn’t see, and looked in at something. 

Peter was about to get up and swing down to the pavement in front of Wade. Startle him maybe, which would have been funny. 

Then, he heard something to his right. 

His head snapped in that direction, searching out the cause for the sound. Quickly, his senses zeroed in on the source. There was a window open in an apartment and a kid was crying. 

Not unusual. Kids cry.  _ Spidersense  _ told him to get his ass in gear. 

So he got up, shot a web, and swung into action. 

Tumbling through the open window, the kid started screaming louder. He popped up from the ground and raised his hands in what he hoped the toddler understood as a peaceful gesture. 

“ _ Shh, shh, shh _ ! It’s okay, it’s okay! What’s wrong?” 

The little boy was kneeling on the floor, tears and snot running down his distressed face. He stared up at Peter with massive brown eyes. 

“ _ MAMA!”  _ The little boy screamed, and Peter had to muse momentarily at the impressiveness of the boy’s lung capacity. 

“Where’s mama?” Peter asked, starting to look around for the woman as her son continued screaming for her.

Peter cursed quietly when he found her, sprawled out on the bedroom floor, some kind of bodily fluid leaking from the corner of her mouth. 

He knelt down beside her and assessed the situation. He checked her pulse. There, but weak. Breathing was about the same. It looked like she’d had a seizure or something. 

Peter looked around for a phone. There was one on the bed, and he grabbed it, calling 911 and asking for an ambulance. 

Peter turned the woman over on her side, debating whether or not he should force her to throw up more, but not knowing if it was a seizure or an overdose. More fluid spurted from the woman’s lips and she choked, but being on her side meant she wasn’t choking anymore. Peter patted her back, keeping careful concentration on her pulse and breathing, when suddenly he was shoved very inexplicably over. 

He hit the ground for a split second before he was up, wondering  _ what the actual fuck _ . 

“ _ GET AWAY FROM HER! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!”  _

Six-and-a-half feet of  _ huge  _ man loomed in front of him, wearing a security guard uniform for some bank. 

“Hey, woah! Listen, an ambulance is on the way, she needs he—” 

His sentence was interrupted when the man lunged. 

Peter dodged, hopping over the bed and diving towards the door. He skittered back into the living room, where the little boy was, sitting on the floor and bawling into his tiny fists. 

“ _ WHAT DID YOU DO?! WHAT DID YOU DO, MOTHERFUCKER?!”  _

“Oh  _ boy _ ,” Peter muttered, and then jumped up suddenly, narrowly avoiding the lamp thrown at his head. 

Now, he stuck to the ceiling, both the man and the little boy staring up at him, the little boy’s ear-piercing screaming resumed. 

“ _ Listen  _ to me!” Peter exclaimed, shooting a web at the man’s arm as he started towards him again, sending him reeling back, and plastering his forearm to the wall. 

The man shouted unintelligibly, struggling hard, trying to get free. 

Peter dropped down from the ceiling. 

“ _ Listen!  _ Okay?!” 

The man yelled again, but stopped, breathing hard, glaring at Peter with frankly terrifying hatred. 

“I’m here because I heard something and thought something was wrong!” Peter exclaimed, “I came in to help her! Because he was crying!” Peter said, gesturing at the toddler, “is this your son?” he asked. 

The man, still obviously livid, bellowed: “ _ Don’t touch my son!”  _

Peter jumped, and threw his hands up. 

“Okay, okay, I’m not. I’m not going to. I’m only trying to help.” 

Peter could hear sirens in the distance, coming closer. An ambulance for the woman. 

“Listen,” Peter said again, hoping he conveyed his sincerity through his mask. “I don’t know what happened, but I called an ambulance and it’ll be here soon. Okay?” 

The man, for his part, did not respond. He was yanking at the webs with his free hand, knuckles white. 

“I’m going to hand you a knife, so you can cut yourself free. And I’m going to leave. Okay?” 

Peter moved into the kitchen area, selecting a knife from the holder, and slowly approaching the man who held out his hand impatiently, still glaring at him. 

“She’s still breathing. The ambulance is almost here,” Peter said, and placed the knife in the man’s hand, handle first. 

As soon as the knife was passed off, Peter bolted, unwilling to stick around and see if the man’s rage at him had really passed.

Peter dove out the window, free falling for a second before shooting a web at the opposite building, and swinging himself away. Below in the street, the ambulance was pulling up in front of the apartment building, two EMTs popping out and running towards the building. 

Peter swung himself a few more buildings away, and then pulled himself on top of one, landing in a crouch, putting a hand down to steady himself. 

His heart was pounding and he was breathing hard. 

It’s crazy how wild fucking rookie situations can get, huh? Never underestimate the spectrum of a human’s reaction to stress. 

Peter leaned back sitting down heavily, shaking his arms out like shaking dirt from them. He breathed out slowly, trying to calm his heart rate. 

The hair on the back of his neck stood up. He frowned, and pushed himself up on his knees again, looking over the edge of the building. 

Down below, Deadpool was frantically waving his arms. 

“ _ HEY!”  _ He yelled, which, save for super hearing, would have been impossible to understand. “ _ Fancy meeting you here, huh?!”  _

Peter flopped down on his back, limbs akimbo, staring up at the sky. His mouth twitched, and then he was laughing. He pressed his hand over his eyes (over his mask) and sighed heavily. 

He flipped over, and crawled to the edge again, looking over to find Wade still there, neck craned to look up. His posture straightened when he saw Peter again.

Peter pointed at the fire-escape. Wade’s head turned and followed the line of his finger. 

“Climb, Romeo!” Peter shouted, unsure of Wade could actually hear him. 

Either way, Deadpool moved, and started up the rickety metal stairs. 

 

“So this is kinda stalker-y, huh?” Deadpool asked, swinging his legs back and forth. 

They were sat on the ledge, side by side. A position that was now familiar for them both. 

“What, running into each other  _ again _ ?” Peter chortled. “I’ve decided to just fucking accept it.” 

Deadpool half shrugged, and leaned forward, looking down the street in the direction of the apartment building where all the drama went down a few minutes before, the ambulance just now peeling away, lights and sirens blaring. 

“What’s with the lights?” Deadpool asked. 

Peter blew his cheeks out, and stretched his neck. 

“Just a...thing,” he said. 

Deadpool nodded, humming like you do when someone’s telling you about their day and you don’t really care but you hum and nod anyway because that’s what people  _ do _ . 

“So, last time I saw you, you had your hands full of electric mutant girl.” 

Peter nodded, cringing internally. 

“Yeah…” he drawled. 

“Have they sentenced her to the electric chair yet?” Wade chortled. 

Peter cocked his head to the side. 

“Not...really.” 

“ _ Really? _ Color me  _ surprised! _ ” 

“I thought that they...I mean…” Peter sighed. 

“Ooh, what did you  _ do _ , Spides?” 

“Fucking  _ nothing _ ,” Peter spat, and scrubbed his hands over his masked face. He felt it all bubbling just at the brim like it had been all day, and here,  _ now _ , with none other than his new fucking emotional support dog that was apparently Wade fucking Deadpool Fucking Wilson, it all came regurgitating out. 

A lapse of words folded over them neatly. Wade’s countenance was all wrong. His posture wasn’t right for the way tension and frustration was coming off Peter in waves. Was he really so immune? Or out of touch, or whatever the fuck it is it always seems to be. 

Wade suddenly fumbled for something in the pockets of his utility belt. He unzipped and pulled open a lot of them. Peter counted five before he finally yanked something out from a side pocket triumphantly with a little “ _ a-ha! _ ”. Surprisingly, it was a pack of cigarettes and a cheap plastic lighter. 

“Cool thing about having cancer constantly ravaging your body,” Wade said, thumbing open the pack and slipping one of the cigarettes out, using his other hand to roll his mask up to the bridge of his nose. Peter watched as Wade placed the filter between his lips. and then brought the lighter up with both hands, cupping one over his mouth and using the other to flick the ignition in a practiced motion that only took one try, “Is that you can’t get  _ more  _ cancer.” Wade finally finished his sentence. He grabbed the cigarette in his mouth delicately again with two fingers, taking a deep drag before removing the cigarette and breathing smoke. 

Peter hated the smell, but felt an inexplicable tug at his chest watching the motions. 

“I don’t think that’s how cancer works,” Peter said after a second, letting the implications of what Wade actually said sink in. 

Wade shrugged. 

“Doesn’t make a difference to me.” 

“It doesn’t seem like much does.” 

Again, Wade shrugged. 

“I’m a very much  _ to-may-to, tah-mah-to  _ kinda guy.” 

“I don’t know,” Peter said, voice reaching that weird, sincere murmur that it did when he was sitting next to Wade, staring at the side of his usually fully masked face. With his mask pulled up the way it was, Peter could see his jaw work.  _ Fuck _ ,  _ what?  _

Wade glanced over at him, holding his cigarettes out with his elbow balanced on his knee. 

“Don’t know what?” 

“I...don’t know you,” Peter finally settled, blinking as he turned his head away.  _ I don’t. I don’t know him. So stop it. Shut up and stop it. Everything that is going on right now in him needs to get the fuck out.  _

Wade giggled, “I’m an open book.” 

“Yeah, but on what page?” 

Their eyes met, albeit through masks, but Wade looked away. 

“Whichever one has the reverse-cowgirl position.” 

Peter couldn’t help the small laugh that followed Wade’s response. 

“You’re a strange duck, dude.” 

“Takes one to know one, loser.” 

“Might be right about that.” 

“You? No way, I bet you do something  _ so  _ domestic in your day-to-day.” 

“This  _ is  _ my day to day,” Peter said, snorting. 

Wade waved his hand flippantly. 

“Nah, I mean your  _ other  _ day-to-day.” 

“Ah, yes, the  _ separate  _ set of twenty four hours I’m given.” 

“Precisely.” 

“It’d be nice to just get to be one person.” 

“Ah, see, I’m  _ always _ Deadpool. What you see is what you get.” 

“I imagine that being a lot less stressful.” 

“Yeah, except when all the people who’re pissed at you for whatever job you did last week know  _ exactly  _ where to find you, and you have to keep replacing the damn furniture.” 

“Huh, I doubt that.” 

Wade raised an eyebrow at him. 

“Bullet-hole chic seems more your style. Besides, I can’t imagine you strolling the aisles of IKEA.” 

Wade lifted his hand and flicked Peter’s forehead. 

“Then you don’t have much of an imagination, amigo.” 

Peter shrugged. 

“You’re so  _ scandalous _ ,” Wade said after a minute, cracking up with little giggles. 

Peter glanced over, questioning. 

“It’s one thing to  _ begrudgingly  _ keep company with yours truly, but to  _ actively invite it _ ? Webs, your halfway to getting your sane-person card revoked.” 

“Oh, is that something we normies are issued now?” 

Wade cocked his head and clicked his tongue, holding up a factual index finger. 

“You never know about it until it’s taken away,” he said. 

Peter nodded thoughtfully. 

Peter looked around at the city. The street so far below them, it felt like looking into a zoomed out lens. 

“I trust you, you know,” Peter said.

“Famous last words,” replied Wade in a chipper voice.  

Peter chortled humorlessly. 

“Thought you didn’t know me,” he continued. 

Peter scoffed, half-amused. 

“Yeah...” 

He looked up at Wade after a few seconds of silence though to find him staring at him. No matter how expressive Wade managed to be through his mask, there were still times where it was impossible to read anything off him. But from body language, and the way Wade held himself so tightly, and didn’t look away from Peter, Peter thought maybe he was confused.

 

_ “Are you as crazy as they say?”  _

_ Deadpool looked at him. Tilted his head.  _

_ “Who says I’m crazy?”  _

_ Peter stared back, then blinked. He looked away.  _

_ “No one--I mean...just...I don’t know, I guess...” Peter winced.  _

_ “Well crazy is as crazy does.”  _

 

_ “Do you like me?” Deadpool drew out childishly, drawing out the ‘youuuuu’.  _

_ Peter breathed out.  _

_ “Please,” he replied sarcastically.  _

 

_ “Will you hate me?”  _

_ Peter almost didn’t hear it. Wade’s voice was low and nervous.  _

_ Peter turned to face him again. Wade’s arms were limp at his sides, in one hand still was the gun. Peter wondered how a giant masked man decked out in copious weaponry could appear vulnerable.  _

_ “No,” Peter said. _

 

_ Peter didn’t want to know Deadpool. He wanted to know Wade Wilson. _

 

Peter reached up and pulled his mask off, holding it in his lap. He half-smiled. 

“I’m Peter.” 

Wade, it seemed, was frozen. 

Peter raised an eyebrow. 

Wade seemed to snap back to existence, and now Peter  _ could _ see the confusion through his mask, and his slightly parted lips. 

“You’re a  _ baby _ .” 

Peter was slightly stunned into silence for a moment, then laughed. Really-truly, and felt that little bit more of the weight in his shoulders and chest lift. 

“Okay?” He asked, still smiling. 

“Why is Spiderman a highschooler? Who let Spiderman be a highschooler?!” Wade asked, waving his hands around wildly. 

“I’m not a...highschooler,” Peter frowned. 

Wade froze, and looked over at Peter again. 

“What?” 

“I’m nineteen” Peter said a bit awkwardly, running his thumb over the hem of his mask. 

Wade continued staring at him for several seconds. Then, he slowly lowered his hands. 

“So, you’re an adult?” 

“Yeah?” 

Wade suddenly deflated, breathing out a huge sigh.

“You have no idea how relieved me and my wet dreams are to hear that, Spidey.” 

Peter snorted. 

“You’re insufferable.” 

Wade held one finger up, pointing it first at Peter than at himself. 

“Don’t act like you haven’t thought about all this on the dark, quiet,  _ lonely _ nights.” 

Peter laughed again, leaning back and putting his hands on the ground behind him to rest his weight on them. He looked out at the city and sky again, saying nothing. He felt Wade continuing to stare at him, and didn’t blame him. He was just as interested to find out what Wade looked like. Peter closed his eyes and took a deep breath, relief flooding him with the open air touching his face. 

“...As long as we’re being honest, Spidey, you’re even cuter than I thought.” 

Peter glanced over at Wade, flashing him a grin with relative ease. He was used to flirty remarks, and suggestive compliments from Wade. But that was when all Wade had ever seen was the mask and the suit. It was different, now. Not bad...just different. Peter found that he still liked it. 

Keyword there that Peter himself picked up on: _Still._

Wade leaned back on his hands as well, copying Peter’s pose. 

“You  _ can  _ call me Peter if you want,” Peter commented, noticing that Wade hadn’t yet. He glanced out of the corner of his eye at Wade, who shrugged. 

“I’m letting it come naturally.” 

Peter shrugged as well. 

“Fair enough.” 

Peter leaned forward and sighed heavily, running his hands over his face for what felt like the hundredth time that day. 

“It’s been a  _ fucking  _ week,” Peter muttered. 

Wade made a humming noise. 

“ _ I punched him _ ,” Peter said, muffled by his hands, bringing the topic around full circle. 

“Who?” 

“ _ Tony.”  _

“Hawk?” 

“ _ Wade _ ...” 

“The Tiger?” 

“ _ Stark _ . Tony  _ Stark _ . Iron Man. Stark Industries. Eats private jets for breakfast.”  

“You punched Tony Stark?” 

Peter ran his hand through his hair. 

“Yes,” he responded. 

“You?” 

“According to eyewitness reports.” 

“Tony Stark had a fist connect forcefully with a part of his body (personally rooting for the nuts), and the fist was connected to your arm?” 

“Last time I checked.” 

“You punched Tony Stark in the balls?!” 

“Yes!” Peter nearly shouted, then his brows furrowed “—No!” He exclaimed when he fully processed Wade’s sentence. “I punched him in the face!” 

“That’s amazing!” Deadpool exclaimed enthusiastically, nearly falling off the edge of the roof in his sudden explosion of excited flailing limbs. 

“No, it’s not,” Peter sighed, deflating, “it’s a big fucking problem actually.” 

Deadpool shrugged, reeling in his arms and legs again. 

“I mean, if you choose to look at it that way.” 

Peter dropped his head. 

“We’re supposed to be a  _ team _ . We’re not supposed to—” 

“You know—and I’m sorry for interrupting you, usually not my shtick—but I think your problem—once again, apologies, I know:  _ me _ telling another person what  _ their  _ problem is—that you keep focusing on how you think things are  _ supposed  _ to be instead of how they actually are. Which sucks. The things, I mean. The things sucks. The Avengers suck. And I know that just sounds like a typical agent of antiheroism going  _ ‘oh, uh, the Avengers suck, meh!’ _ , but really. I have deeply improvable and unsubstantial reasons for believing so.” 

Peter stared over at him. At the side of his mask, actually, because Deadpool was facing away, taking another drag from his cigarette. 

“I think somewhere in there you actually said something a little profound,” Peter said. 

Wade shook his head. 

“Doesn’t sound like me,” he replied, glancing over. Once again, his gaze caught, and Peter watched him do an almost cartoonish doubletake. “You know, I’m never gonna get used to that face of yours.” 

Peter chortled, “I’ll put the mask back on if you like,” he said, rolling his eyes. 

Wade snickered, “ah, that’s  _ my  _ line.” 

Peter cocked an eyebrow, but didn’t push the matter. Instead, he turned to look out at the city again. He felt the weight that’d been heavy in his gut returning as he thought about the whole... _ situation _ . 

“I just...I was apparently just so _willing_ to let Myra slip right through my hands…” Peter paused. “Black Widow said S.H.I.E.L.D had come and collected her, and I didn’t try to _do_ _anything_ about it. I just got mad and  home.” He swallowed thickly around the lump that’d been present in his throat for a couple hours now. He _should_ have gone after her. That should have been his _first_ goddamn reaction. Not to go home and fucking mope around all night. The Avengers were right to count him out. 

Peter pressed his face to his hands and breathed out. 

“Why are you telling me all this?” 

Peter dropped his hands, and looked over at Wade, whose head was tilted towards him. He asked the question without accusation, or disdain, just general curiosity. After a considerable pause, Peter finally responded, sounding maybe a little more sincere than he intended: 

“I don’t know.” 

Another beat of silence passed. Peter looked away. 

“I mean… _ obviously  _ you wouldn’t be sitting here with  _ me  _ if you weren’t having some sort of identity crisis.” 

Peter’s face screwed up at the emphasis of “ _ me” _ . 

“Why you gotta say shit like that?” He asked before he could even think of hesitating. 

Wade looked over in the new double-take fashion, but this time the cause seemed to be more like surprise over the fact that Peter was frowning. 

Peter watched his mask lift slightly as Wade raised his eyebrows. 

“Seriously?”

Peter kept staring at him. 

Wade made a show of turning, twisting at the waist and stubbing out his cigarette on the concrete beside him before turning back to Peter. 

“I know why you’re here, Spides.” 

Peter made a face that read  _ enlighten me, please.  _

“You wanna be my redemption arc.” 

Peter leaned away slightly, frown only deepening further. 

Wade made a big show of rolling his eye shifting so he was sitting up straight. He pointed at Peter. 

“You wanna turn me Pro-Hero- _ AndJusticeForAll  _ through the power of your untainted, pure little innocent lamb soul and puppy dog eyes, and then take me on home to Papa to show him how you tamed the big wild Stallion he told you to stay away from,” Wade said, gesturing all the while between them, and making other weird hand gestures that meant absolutely nothing. “Then you wanna win a couple races with me at your side, bask in the fact of always having a constant personal reminder of what a good hero you are, and in the glory of slightly sheepish Avengerers shuffling their feet around you and patting you on the back for a ‘ _ Job Well Done, Spiderman!’ _ , and then you can go home and close your eyes and feel nice and mushy inside because your moral adequacy has been affirmed and you never have to feel bad about your perceived failures ever again.” 

There were a few seconds after this spiel that passed in absolute silence. The wind, and traffic, and life down below were all the same, but the talking had stopped. And now it was just Peter staring at a half-masked Deadpool and feeling everything he ever felt about the man in front of him start to twist and warp inside him. 

“Is that really what you think?” Peter asked after a while. 

Slowly, Wade’s arms—which had been slightly raised and extended out from his sides since he had finished his rant with a dramatic flourish—lowered. 

Peter picked up his mask, and stood up. He turned around, and took the step down from the ledge onto the rooftop. He paused…

_ Nope _ . 

He turned around again, spinning on his heel. Deadpool had turned as well, still sitting, but facing him.  

“I’m here because I want to be, Wade,” Peter said, and he heard the undertone of anger growing in his voice. “Because you’re my friend.” 

“You’re not my fucking friend, Spidey.” 

Peter’s foot moved backwards away from Wade of its own accord before he stopped himself and stood firm. 

“Don’t pretend like you are.” 

Peter scoffed. It was a conversation fourth graders should be having. 

“Don’t  _ tell  _ me what I am,” he spat, leaning forward towards Wade. 

Wade suddenly stood up, crowding Peter’s space and towering over him immediately. Peter  _ did _ take half a step back this time, but glared up at Wade all the same. 

“The  _ only  _ reason you’re here is because  _ you’re  _ not happy with your fucked up team of emotionally stunted overrighteous rod-tight assholes, and  _ you’re  _ trying to make up for it by sitting with the retarded kid at lunc-” 

Peter lunged, grabbing Wade’s shoulder with one hand and the side of his face with the other. He mashed their mouths together in an action that can only be described as  _ ferocious _ , and didn’t think fucking twice about shoving his tongue down Wades throat. Wade made a surprised sound, hands coming up to Peter’s hips and Peter couldn’t deny and was more than a little embarrassed by how much he liked  _ that  _ shit. 

A second passed, and Peter thought he’d made a terrible mistake. That he was utterly unwelcome, and he was about to face the most awkward and awful moment of his life when he was shoved away. 

The second then passed, and then Wade was kissing back, and leaning down so that Peter didn’t have to stand on his toes anymore, and his arms slipped entirely around Peter’s middle, and Wade’s partially rolled up mask was pressing weirdly against the bridges of their noses but that was hardly the first thing on either of their minds and— 

They broke apart breathing hard, and with a slightly disgusting strand of saliva strung between their mouths for a second before snapping. 

Peter’s whole face burnt. Wade, for his part, seemed to be frozen. Blue screen of death. Elsa’s kingdom. Han Solo in  _ The Empire Strikes Back _ . 

Peter licked his lips, glanced at Wade’s still partially-open mouth, and then back up to his eyes, hidden behind his mask. His voice came out fast and out of breath:

“ _ ‘Retarded’  _ is a slur.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the read, lovely people! What'd you think about the big kiss? I, personally, am extremely excited to finally get into the relationship! (though one kiss, as we shall see, does not a relationship make).

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. 
> 
> Tumblr: insidious-now


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